GIFT  OF 


:'■, 


•  «        c      ,< 


IN  MEMORIAM 


CHARLES  JOSEPH  LITTLE 


BORN  SEPTEMBER  21,  1840 
DIED  MARCH  11,  1911 


EDITED  BY 

CHARLES  M.  STUART 


CHICAGO 

FORBES  &  COMPANY 

1912 


(3  V 4070 


COPYRIGHT,  1912,  BY 
FORBES  &  COMPANY 


•  •      •   •  t"  . 


BIOGRAPHICAL 

1840.  September  21.    Born  at  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

1861.  Graduated    A.  B.,    from    University    of 

Pennsylvania. 

1862.  Admitted  to  Philadelphia  Conference  of 

the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 

1862-1867.  Served  the  following  pastorates:  New- 
ark, Delaware  (1862-3) ;  St.  James  and 
Spring  Garden  Street,  Philadelphia 
(1863-5);  Springfield,  Pa.  (1865-6); 
Chestnut  Hill,  Philadelphia  (1866-7). 
1867.  Accepts  professorship  of  mathematics  in 
Dickinson  Seminary. 

1869-1872.  Studying  in  Europe. 

1872-1874.  Served  as  pastor,  Christ  Church,  Phila- 
delphia. 
1872.  Married  Anna  Marina  Schultze,  of  Ber- 
lin, Prussia. 

1874-1885.  Professor  of  Philosophy  and  History  in 
Dickinson  College. 
1882.  Received  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy 

from  De  Pauw  University. 
1884.  Delegate    to    the    Methodist    Centennial 
Conference  at  Baltimore. 

1885-1891.  Professor  of  Logic  and  History  in  Syra- 
cuse University. 


251014 


2  I?{  MEMORIAM 

1888.  Delegate   from    Philadelphia   Conference 
to  General  Conference  at  New  York. 
1891-1911.  Professor  of  Church  History  in  Garrett 
Biblical  Institute. 

1892.  Delegate  from  Northern  New  York  Con- 
ference to  General  Conference  at 
Omaha. 

1895.  Elected  to  the  Presidency  of  Garrett  Bib- 

lical Institute. 

1896.  Delegate  from  Northern  New  York  Con- 

ference to  General  Conference  at  Cleve- 
land. 

1900.  Delivered  the  Fernley  Lecture  before  the 
British  Wesleyan  Conference;  Dele- 
gate from  Rock  River  Conference  to 
General  Conference  at  Chicago. 

1904.  Delegate  from  Rock  River  Conference  to 
General  Conference  at  Los  Angeles. 

1908.  Delegate  from  Rock  River  Conference  to 
General  Conference  at  Baltimore. 

1911.  March  11.  Died   suddenly   at   Evanston, 
Illinois,  from  angina  pectoris. 
March    13.     Buried   at   Rosehill    Ceme- 
tery, Chicago. 
May  21.  Memorial  services,  Garrett  Bib- 
lical Institute,  Evanston,  Illinois. 


THE  LAST  HOUKS 

EARLY  on  Saturday  morning,  March  11,  1911,  it 
was  announced  that  during  the  night  Dr.  Little  had 
6uccumbed  to  a  sudden  assault  of  angina  pectoris  and 
passed  out  into  the  unseen.  On  Friday  he  was  ap- 
parently in  usual  health.  He  taught  with  his  accus- 
tomed vigor  and  enthusiasm ;  he  took  part  as  his  wont 
was  in  the  chapel  exercises  of  the  school;  he  spoke 
to  the  family  about  his  new  relish  in  being  able  to 
do  his  work  without  the  dread  of  pain  to  which  he 
had  been  a  martyr  for  many  years;  he  was  in  his 
most  engaging  mood  during  the  evening,  which  he 
spent  at  the  home  of  his  son ;  and  he  started  for  home 
without  sign  or  premonition  of  impending  death.  At 
eleven  o'clock  his  daughters  heard  him  moan  in  pain : 
physicians  were  instantly  summoned,  and  for  a  time 
there  was  a  surcease  of  acute  symptoms.  About  five 
o'clock  there  was  a  recurrent  attack,  and  before  the 
physicians  could  reach  him  again  he  was  gone.  Dur- 
ing his  conscious  moments  he  accepted  bravely  the 
rigor  of  his  martyrdom ;  and  the  last  whispered  words 
were  from  his  Master's  parables  of  watchfulness 
against  the  enemy  which  cometh  as  a  thief  in  the 
night.  To  him  God  gave  the  end  he  had  desired;  it 
came  without  warning,  and  strength  was  granted  him 
to  meet  it  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 
3 


THE  FUNERAL 

FUNERAL  services  were  held  Monday  afternoon, 
March  13.  At  the  home  the  Twenty-Third  Psalm  was 
read  by  Professor  S.  C.  Bronson,  who  also  offered 
prayer.  The  building  of  the  First  Methodist  Church 
being  still  incomplete,  public  services  were  held  in  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church,  in  the  presence  of  a  large 
congregation,  among  whom  were  the  faculties  and 
trustees  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute  and  of  North- 
western University,  the  students  from  both  schools, 
and  representative  delegations  from  the  Chicago 
Preachers'  Meeting,  the  Rock  River  Conference,  the 
Chicago  Home  Missionary  and  Church  Extension  So- 
ciety, and  the  theological  schools  of  other  denomina- 
tions in  and  near  Chicago.  The  active  pallbearers 
were  chosen  from  the  different  classes  in  Garrett  Bib- 
lical Institute;  the  honorary  escort  consisted  of  Mr. 
Frank  P.  Crandon,  President  A.  W.  Harris,  Mr.  H. 
G.  Haugan,  Mr.  William  A.  Dyche,  Mr.  James  A. 
Patten,  Hon.  0.  H.  Horton. 

The  company  entered  the  church  to  the  majestic 
rhythm  of  Watts'  hymn,  "0  God,  our  help  in  ages 
past,"  after  which  the  Scripture  was  read  by  Dr.  T. 
P.  Frost,  pastor  of  the  First  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  A  favorite  hymn,  "Abide  with  me ;  fast  falls 
the  eventide,"  was  sung  by  the  A  Capella  Choir  of  the 
University,  after  which  Dr.  Frost  offered  prayer.  Pro- 
4 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  5 

fessor  Bronson  then  offered  tribute  for  his  colleagues, 
and  Rev.  Charles  M.  Stuart  read  an  intimate  appre- 
ciation prepared  by  another  who,  in  virtue  of  a  long 
and  exceptionally  close  and  sympathetic  association, 
was  able  to  present  those  phases  of  character  which 
disclose  the  heart  of  the  man.  After  a  brief  prayer 
the  Choral  Benediction  was  sung  by  the  University 
Choir.  The  burial  was  at  Rosehill  Cemetery,  the 
service  being  read  by  Revs.  T.  P.  Frost  and  C.  M. 
Stuart. 


A  COLLEAGUE'S  APPRECIATION 
Professor  Solon  C.  Bronson,  D.  D. 

TO  the  faculty  and  students  of  the  Institute  the 
loss  of  President  Little  is  irreparable.  This  year  will 
ever  remain  deeply  impressed  on  the  memory  of  us 
all.  Last  year  our  hearts  were  filled  with  forebodings, 
but  we  were  upheld  by  the  hope,  almost  the  knowledge, 
of  his  return  to  us.  But  now  the  end  which  we  call 
death  has  come.  Between  the  closing  session  of  one 
school  week  and  the  opening  of  the  next,  we  must  bid 
him  good-by  forever  and  lay  him  away.  We  shall 
not  see  his  face  again.  His  expressive  voice,  so 
strangely  and  interestingly  interpreting  his  thoughts, 
will  no  more  be  heard  by  us.  We  must  accustom  our- 
selves to  his  permanent  absence.    How,  we  cannot  tell. 

President  Little  came  to  the  Institute  in  his  prime, 
and  was  enabled  to  maintain  his  vigor  of  mind  and 
heart  until  the  very  last.  I  saw  him  for  the  last 
time  a  week  ago,  and  then  thought  that  I  had  never 
seen  him  so  strong  in  body  nor  so  buoyant  in  mind. 
This,  therefore,  was  Dr.  Little's  lifework.  He  re- 
garded it  as  such.  He  probably  did  not  desire,  cer- 
tainly never  sought,  another  position  as  a  preference. 
He  loved  his  work,  he  loved  his  school,  he  loved  his 
students.  Dr.  Little's  recognition  by  the  Church  at 
9 


10  IN  MEMORIAM 

large  was  gained  before  he  came  to'  us,  but  he  greatly 
increased  his  fame  through  service  here ;  and  his  teach- 
ings, and  even  more,  his  imperial  personality,  have 
stamped  hundreds  of  students  who  will  bear  the  im- 
press to  their  very  graves.  He  was  by  nature  and  by 
training  a  teacher,  not  after  the  conventional  order, 
but  as  himself  the  seat  and  center  of  authority.  His 
profound  insight  into  things,  backed  by  his  magnetic 
personality,  never  failed  to  impress  his  students  in- 
delibly. To  him  was  applied,  and  always  with  deep 
conviction  of  its  truth,  the  term  "great/'  He  was 
great  in  the  eyes  of  all  his  students.  One  of  them 
from  an  earlier  time,  a  pupil,  I  think,  at  Dickinson, 
when  told  last  Saturday  of  President  Little's  death, 
remarked :  "He  made  upon  me  in  those  distant  days 
the  deepest  impressions  of  my  life."  There  was  no 
question  with  anyone  as  to  his  supremacy.  He  was 
the  most  versatile  man  I  ever  knew.  His  mind  was 
clear  and  penetrating.  He  had  a  rare  quality  of  in- 
terpreting men  and  events.  He  saw  instantly  the  in- 
volved relations  of  things,  and  seemed  to  have  a  more 
comprehensive  grasp  of  world-wide  movements  than 
any  man  I  have  known. 

One  needed,  however,  to  come  close  to  him  in  his 
suffering  to  discover  other  and  rarer  qualities  of  char- 
acter— his  patience,  his  kindliness,  his  faith.  This 
was  to  me  a  new  side  of  his  life  which  was  disclosed 
during  the  past  two  years.  No  word  of  complaint 
escaped  his  lips.  His  gentleness  under  pain  which 
must  have  irritated  was  marked.     His  brain,  always 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  11 

tremendously  active,  now  when  he  was  confined  by 
illness  expressed  itself  in  great  forethought  and  con- 
6iderateness  for  others. 

His  ideals  of  the  ministry  and  of  what  a  minister 
ought  to  be  and  do,  were  the  very  highest.  No  one  who 
had  come  from  his  classroom  could  think  lightly  of 
the  Church,  of  her  mission,  or  her  ministry.  For  low 
ideals,  or  unworthy  aims,  for  indifference  or  sloth  on 
the  part  of  the  minister,  he  held  a  justifiable  con- 
tempt. No  incapable  man  could  get  encouragement 
here  for  his  incompetency.  But  to  the  man  who 
willed  the  best,  who  strove  for  the  best,  President 
Little  could  point  out  the  way  and  could  inspire  him 
to  achievement. 

And  for  the  Church  he  had  the  highest  aims.  No 
man  knew  her  history  better  than  he.  No  one  could 
thread  the  courses  of  her  doctrinal  streams  more 
surely  than  he.  For  the  Church's  Lord  and  Master 
he  had  unfeigned  devotion,  and  for  the  Church  herself, 
while  frankly  condemning  anything  he  thought 
wrong  in  spirit  or  policy,  he  had  the  readiest  loyalty. 

To  occupy  the  position  he  held  as  the  head  of  a 
great  theological  seminary  in  such  a  time  as  this  is 
both  difficult  and  grave.  Never  has  such  light  been 
thrown  on  the  origins  or  the  histories  of  Christianity. 
To  choose  the  way  amid  this  confusion,  the  safe  way 
for  students,  demands  an  ability  little  short  of  genius. 
To  be  true  to  all  that  is  true  and  good  in  the  past 
and  to  interpret  it  to,  and  incorporate  it  in,  the 
enlarging  life  and  knowledge  of  the  present,  and  do 


12  IN  MEMORIAM 

this  safely  for  students,  is  the  very  highest  achieve- 
ment.   And  this  achievement  was  President  Little's. 

The  students  of  the  Institute  today,  and  those 
others  of  former  years  who  are  here,  are  appalled,  and 
the  hundreds  of  others  scattered  over  the  vast  fields  of 
the  Church  will  be  appalled.  But  in  their  tears  they 
bring  to  his  grave  the  highest  admiration  for  attain- 
ment and  character,  and  a  love  such  as  the  apostle 
characterized  as  abiding. 

On  his  companions — the  members  of  the  faculty — 
the  blow  falls  with  benumbing  force.  For  the  moment 
we  are  speechless,  for  we  are  leaderless,  and  our  friend 
is  gone.  His  judgment  invariably  shaped  our  own. 
His  voice  carried  the  decision,  and  this  not  by  sheer 
force  of  will  but  by  clearness  and  pungency  of  state- 
ment.   What  shall  we  do  now  ? 

And  in  those  other  relations  of  life,  the  social  rela- 
tions, how  commanding  his  presence!  How  varied 
and  interesting  his  knowledge,  and  all  of  it  apparently 
at  immediate  command.  How  charming  and  en- 
lightened and  enlivening  his  conversation!  We 
formed  a  little  group  of  kindred  spirits,  a  harmonious 
group,  each  mutually  helpful  and  considerate  of  the 
other,  and  now  the  circle  is  rudely  broken  by  death. 
All  of  us,  with  the  exception  of  Professor  Terry,  have 
come  into  the  faculty  since  that  circle  was  broken 
before.  We  cannot  speak  our  eulogy  today,  but  we 
bring  our  tribute  of  love,  and  with  bowed  heads  sub- 
mit to  the  divine  providence. 

It  is  in  hope,  however,  not  despair.     A  year  ago, 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  13 

I  think  it  was  the  day  before  he  was  taken  to  the  hos- 
pital, I  held  a  long  conversation  with  him  in  regard 
to  the  school.  He  then  said  that  he  approached  his 
trial  with  grave  fears  as  to  the  issue,  but,  continued 
he,  "If  my  time  to  go  has  come,  Bronson,  I  am  ready 
for  it.  I  know  whither  the  way  leads."  Now,  at 
least,  he  knows  that  way,  and  it  will  be  less  dreadful 
for  some  of  the  rest  of  us  to  follow  it  now  that  he 
has  traveled  that  way. 

Dear,  kind,  forceful  teacher,  leader,  friend,  brother, 
colleague,  farewell. 


AN  INTIMATE  APPRECIATION 

BY 

ONE  BOUND  BY  CLOSEST  TIES  THROUGH 

MANY  YEARS 

FROM  THE  HEART  TO  THE  HEART 

ONLY  a  few  weeks  ago  Dr.  Little  expressed  the 
wish  that  when  the  summons  came  it  might  be  without 
warning  and  that  strength  would  be  given  him  to 
meet  it  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips.  God  granted  his 
wish.  As  he  lived,  so  he  died,  courageously  and  with 
unwavering  faith  in  the  immanence  and  goodness  of 
the  God  whom  he  served  without  ceasing. 

How  poorly  mere  words  describe  a  life  like  his !  It 
is  written  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  his  students, 
in  the  love  and  devotion  of  his  friends;  it  is  woven 
into  the  lives  of  his  children. 

From  early  manhood  until  his  death  he  had  but 
one  great  ideal,  "to  do  the  will  of  God."  He  loved 
his  books  with  an  ever-consuming  passion,  he  com- 
muned with  the  noblest  minds  of  all  the  ages;  art, 
music,  and  poetry  enriched  and  illumined  his  soul. 
But  with  it  all  he  never  faltered  in  his  faith,  never 
ceased  striving  to  make  this  a  better,  more  beautiful 
world;  never  lost  his  hold  on  the  simple  elementary 
truths  by  which  all  men  must  live. 

In  boyhood  he  conquered  physical  weakness.  With 
14 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  15 

body  and  mind  worn  with  daily  manual  toil,  by  the 
light  of  flickering  lamp  or  candle  flame  he  wrested  his 
early  education.  No  man  may  know,  for  he  never 
told,  the  pain,  the  weariness  of  each  upward  step 
toward  the  goal  of  his  ambition.  He  never  complained, 
for  the  reward  was  greater  than  the  struggle.  Grad- 
uated from  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  in  1861, 
debarred  because  of  his  frail  body  from  taking  part 
in  the  war  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  he  gave 
of  his  mind  and  strength  to  alleviate  some  of  the 
misery  and  suffering  it  entailed.  He  visited  the 
wounded  and  dying  on  the  battlefield;  he  comforted 
the  bereaved  and  stricken  left  at  home  on  farm  and  in 
village.  Astride  his  horse  he  rode  the  circuit  like 
many  a  noble  preacher  before  him.  He  loved  people 
and  they  loved  him.  And  so  in  early  manhood  he 
acquired  that  deep,  intimate  knowledge  of  human  na- 
ture, its  strength,  its  weaknesses,  which  in  later  life 
gave  him  the  wisdom  and  the  power  to  help  and  advise 
those  in  need.  And  all  the  while  his  books  were  his 
daily  companions. 

After  some  years  of  preaching,  fearing  that  his 
bodily  strength  was  not  sufficient  for  the  life  of  the 
pulpit,  he  determined  to  become  a  teacher.  He  then 
began  the  life  which  with  but  a  short  interruption  he 
followed  for  over  forty  years. 

A  teacher,  yes,  that  will  be  his  everlasting  glory,  a 
teacher  not  merely  of  the  letter  but  also  of  the  spirit, 
a  teacher  to  whom  learning  was  but  an  instrument  in 
the  fulfillment  of  man's  highest  destiny,  a  teacher  who 


16  IN  MEMORIAM 

counted  his  work  vain  unless  it  made  his  students 
nobler  men  and  women. 

He  never  lost  the  keen  interest  in  public  affairs  ac- 
quired in  the  days  of  the  fierce  conflicts  preceding  the 
Civil  War.  Throughout  his  life  he  was  at  times  the 
intimate  friend  and  counselor  of  men  in  public  life, 
but  he  never  forgot  that,  above  all  things,  he  was  a 
teacher. 

His  students  idolized  him,  not  merely  because  he 
was  a  brilliant  thinker,  profound  scholar,  but  also 
because  he  was  their  friend,  their  helper.  Through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  this  land  and  in  foreign 
lands  there  are  men  today  who,  when  they  learn  of 
his  death,  will  be  bowed  down  in  grief  because  a  lov- 
ing, helpful  friend  is  gone.  Forgotten  for  the  moment 
will  be  the  thinker,  the  scholar,  the  preacher ;  only  the 
vision  of  the  sympathetic  friend  will  rise  before  them. 

His  mind  was  always  a  sanctuary  for  truth ;  there- 
fore he  kept  it  sweet  and  pure,  firm  and  strong.  He 
loved  the  grandeur  of  the  psalmist's  tributes  to  the 
Almighty,  he  found  his  daily  guidance  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  He  was  never  unmindful  of  the  prob- 
lems and  perplexities  of  human  life.  His  active  mind 
was  untiring  in  its  endeavor  to  help  men  and  women 
solve  them,  but  his  inspiration  was  not  in  the  phil- 
osophic speculations  and  teachings  of  ancient  and 
modern  times,  familiar  as  they  were  to  him,  but  in 
what  he  so  often  called  the  "eternal  verities."  The 
hard  struggle  of  his  early  youth,  the  intense,  untiring 
devotion    to    his    books,    the    long    hours    in    the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  17 

class  room,  the  patient,  painstaking  labor  with  which 
he  prepared  his  sermons  and  writings,  did  not  chill 
his  love  for  the  fellowship  of  his  friends,  did  not  dis- 
pel his  delight  in  the  little  joys  of  life.  As  he  grew 
older  his  face  became  more  and  more  effulgent  with 
happiness ;  he  radiated  kindliness  and  joy  wherever  he 
went.  His  friends  loved  him  and  he  loved  them. 
And  though  one  by  one  they  were  passing  into  the 
beyond  before  him,  his  life  was  not  darkened. 

When  six  years  ago  the  brightness  of  his  life  was 
overcast  by  the  death  of  his  wife,  he  lived  all  the  more 
in  and  for  his  children  and  grandchildren.  How  he 
loved  them  all  and  watched  over  them !  To  him  the 
word  "father"  was  very  sacred.  Patiently  and  with 
comprehensive  wisdom  he  guided  the  footsteps  of  his 
children  through  youth  to  manhood  and  womanhood. 
His  love  for  them,  his  care  over  them  was  tireless. 
Heart  and  brain  were  poured  out  upon  them.  Now 
he  is  gone  to  his  rest,  but  the  memory  of  his  father- 
hood will  be  for  them  an  imperishable  source  of  in- 
spiration and  strength. 


MEMORIAL    SERVICE 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS  FOR  THE  TRUSTEES 
Rev.  Timothy  P.  Frost,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

FOR  several  reasons  it  would  seem  to  be  in  closer 
keeping  with  the  eternal  harmonies  for  Dr.  Little  to 
be  speaking  about  one  of  us  in  a  memorial  service  than 
for  us  to  be  speaking  about  him.  We  thought  he  had 
other  years  of  efficiency  in  which  to  stand  as  an  in- 
terpreter between  the  living  and  the  dead;  and  he 
could  do  it  so  well.  One  might  almost  wish  to  die, 
if  the  president  of  Garrett  were  to  speak  at  his  funeral 
or  read  his  obituary.  Not  that  he  was  ever  an  un- 
scrupulous or  inexact  panegyrist.  He  was  constitu- 
tionally incapable  of  that.  But,  with  his  ability  to 
discriminate  wisely  between  the  things  which  should 
die  and  be  buried  with  one's  bones  and  the  things 
worthy  to  be  immortalized,  he  could  summarize  one's 
life  as  one  would  wish  to  be  remembered. 

Now  he  has  gone,  and  we  miss  a  great  soul  laden 
with  ample  stores  of  assorted  knowledge  from  a  thou- 
sand fields  and  throbbing  with  an  abounding  intellec- 
tual life.  It  is  yet  too  soon  for  us  to  realize  that  his 
wealth  of  accumulation  and  his  captivating  power  to 
use  that  wealth  for  the  good  of  mankind  are  no  longer 
available.  The  world  seems  to  have  been  despoiled  of 
treasures  and  energies  sorely  needed  for  many  days  to 
come.  We  could  have  wished  for  him  another  ten 
21 


22  IN  MEMORIAM 

years  in  which  to  apply  those  energies  to  the  formulat- 
ing and  vitalizing  of  his  mental  stores  in  literary  cre- 
ations to  bless  the  world  after  his  departure.  Only 
provided  that  he  could  have  lived  on  without  waning. 
He  was  not  born  to  wane.  One  can  think  of  him  as 
waning  energetically,  even  meteorically,  perhaps,  but 
one  is  baffled  in  attempting  to  imagine  how  he  could 
have  waned  quietly,  not  to  say  contentedly.  By  the 
help  of  God  it  might  have  been  accomplished,  but  he 
was  graciously  spared  that  trial. 

He  had  small  tolerance  for  death.  Some  of  us  well 
remember  how,  at  the  funeral  of  a  friend  two  years 
ago,  he  exclaimed  in  an  outburst  of  mingled  aversion 
and  defiance:  "I  hate  death."  There  was  nothing 
theatrical  or  studied  in  that  utterance.  It  was  a 
characteristic  gleam  spontaneously  shot  forth  from 
the  soul  of  the  man.  There  was  in  him  a  militant 
inevitableness  which  made  him  unavoidably  dramatic 
in  the  utterance  of  the  tragic.  And  to  him,  believer 
in  immortality  though  he  was,  there  could  be  no 
death  without  tragedy.  Nevertheless  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  he  would  have  preferred  death  to 
waning.  A  somewhat  intimate  acquaintance  with  him 
leads  me  to  think  that  he  dreaded  no  fate  so  much  as 
loss  of  mental  grasp  and  power.  For  him  it  was  well 
that  he  went  while  the  intellectual  eye  was  not  dim 
and  the  intellectual  force  was  not  abated.  But,  alas, 
he  took  so  much  with  him  when  he  went,  that  we  are 
overwhelmed  by  a  sense  of  bewilderment  in  our  loss. 
We  cannot  quite  regain  our  bearings  in  all  this  va- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  23 

cancy  and  silence  where  a  few  weeks  ago  there  was 
fulness  and  speech. 

The  well  nigh  unparalleled  fulness  and  the  excep- 
tional speech  of  the  life  we  miss  remind  me  of  the 
words  of  Jesus  spoken  to  Pontius  Pilate:  "To  this 
end  was  I  born  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the 
world  that  I  should  bear  witness  to  the  truth."  Our 
friend  never  would  have  applied  those  words  to  his 
own  life's  aim  in  any  such  way  as  to  appear  for  one 
moment  to  exalt  himself  to  a  place  of  honor  by  the 
side  of  his  Lord.  But  we  may  say  of  him,  and  we 
do  say  of  him,  that  as  a  follower  of  his  Master  "to 
this  end  was  he  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  he  into 
the  world  that  he  should  bear  witness  to  the  truth." 
And  nobly  did  he  fulfill  that  mission.  I  speak  of  him 
as  a  witness  to  the  truth.  Other  than  that  he  was,  to 
be  sure,  in  harmony  with  that ;  but  to  my  mind  he  was 
no  other  thing  with  emphasis  so  pronounced  and  with 
strength  so  beneficent. 

He  could  be  a  witness  to  the  truth,  first  of  all,  be- 
cause of  his  clear  vision  of  the  truth.  Vision,  prophetic 
in  no  mean  degree,  but  penetrating  and  analytic  to  a 
degree  equalled  by  few  men  and  probably  surpassed  by 
no  man  in  our  Church.  He  looked  into  the  heart  of 
facts,  saw  them  as  they  were  in  themselves,  and,  with 
his  genius  for  the  association  of  ideas,  saw  them,  not 
in  isolation,  but  in  their  relations  to  a  vast  number 
of  things  in  the  heavens  above  and  the  earth  beneath. 
Some  persons  are  always  missing  the  truth  because 
the  facts  they  see  are  bare.    Others,  because  they  are 


24  IN  MEMORIAM 

strangers  to  facts  in  the  nude.  All  their  facts  are 
clothed  and  colored  by  their  imagination.  Dr.  Little 
had  a  well  developed  sense  of  discrimination  between 
the  fact  in  itself  and  the  fact  as  treated  by  the  imag- 
ination. Hence  he  was  saved  with  a  great  salvation 
from  confusing  the  objective  reality  with  its  sub- 
jective embellishments.  In  his  view  of  the  ulterior 
meanings  of  facts  he  looked  into  the  hearts  of  men. 
As  a  lifelong  student  of  men  and  their  deeds  he 
seemed  to  know  most  things  that  men  have  done,  and 
been,  and  discovered,  and  thought,  and  dreamed.  Not 
only  did  he  see  in  the  dynamic  of  human  motives  and 
the  current  of  human  events  the  things  which  other 
observant  minds  saw,  but  he  was  likely  also  to  detect 
the  thing  which  other  minds  did  not  see  and  to  state 
it  with  illuminating  accuracy  and  convincing  force. 
The  unintelligible  world  became  in  part  intelligible  to 
him,  and  all  its  heavy  and  weary  weight  was  lightened, 
by  his  habit  of  looking  not  at  the  things  which  are  seen 
and  temporal  in  human  movements,  but  at  the  things 
which  are  not  seen  and  are  eternal.  He  knew  much 
that  is  in  man  partly  because  he  knew  so  much  that 
is  in  God.  Vision  of  the  divine  nature  gave  him  hope 
for  human  nature.  Few  persons  have  seen  the  evil  in 
human  nature  and  human  institutions  more  vividly 
than  he.  An  optimist,  a  superficial  optimist  at  least, 
he  could  not  be  with  all  this  wilderness  of  defect  and 
sin  before  him.  A  pessimist  he  could  not  be  because 
he  knew  God  and  beheld  so  much  of  the  eternal  pur- 
pose in  human  life.     How  quickly  and  puissantly 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  25 

would  he  rise  to  the  defence  of  human  hopes — to  af- 
firmation of  the  progress  and  prediction  of  the  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  when  a  pessi- 
mistic note  was  sounded  in  his  presence.  He  carried 
the  ages  in  his  mind.  And  in  that  mind  they  were 
not  without  form,  and  void,  with  darkness  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep.  When  he  said,  "Let  there  be  light," 
there  was  light.  And  when  we  saw  the  light  of  the 
ages  as  set  in  order  in  that  mind,  we  saw  that  it  was 
good. 

Dr.  George  Adam  Smith  has  said  of  writers  about 
the  land  of  Palestine  that  "some  are  wearisome  and 
some  are  vain.  They  do  not  give  a  vision  of  the  land 
as  a  whole,  nor  help  you  to  hear  through  it  the  sound 
of  running  history."  The  man  who  is  laureate  in 
memory  today  had  neither  part  nor  lot  with  that  com- 
pany. When  he  took  us  to  any  land  or  age  the  journey 
was  neither  wearisome  nor  vain,  for  as  he  led  on  we 
were  wont  to  be  charmed  by  the  sound  of  running 
history,  a  sound  like  the  murmuring  waters  of  the 
river  of  life.  He  saw  the  truth  alive,  and  the  living 
truth  begat  new  life  in  him.  There  are  men  who  have 
accurate  and  scientifically  classified  knowledge  of  the 
peoples  and  events  of  the  past,  but  who  treat  them  as 
bones,  very  many,  and  lo,  very  dry.  But  under  Dr. 
Little's  touch  they  sprang  to  their  feet,  energized  by 
the  breath  of  life,  an  exceeding  great  army.  More- 
over his  armies  were  usually  on  the  march,  conquering 
or  being  conquered.  All  this  was  more  than  mere 
orderly  movement.    While  his  mind  was  of  the  com- 


26  IN  MEMORIAM 

manding  order,  it  was  also  of  the  fertile  kind,  bring- 
ing forth  fruit  of  itself ;  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear, 
after  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear.  Under  the  impulse 
of  his  thought  some  things  would  be  marching  and 
other  things  germinating  and  growing.  As  a  result, 
he  was  a  creative  conversationalist  of  the  first  rank, 
often  quite  as  fascinating  in  extemporaneous  utter- 
ance as  in  studied  address.  You  were  interested  in 
seeing  his  creations  sprouting,  budding,  blossoming 
and  bearing  fruit  as  he  proceeded.  So  that  there  were 
notably  two  places  where  his  exceptional  abilities  com- 
manded our  admiration  and  sometimes  excited  our 
amazement.  One  when  he  developed  a  great  theme 
on  a  great  occasion;  the  other  when  somebody  had 
started  up  a  great  theme  out  of  a  thicket  of  common- 
places on  a  small  occasion. 

In  all  this  it  is  evident,  of  course,  that  he  possessed 
rare  ability  for  the  retention  of  truth,  an  ability 
which  occasionally,  and  for  the  moment,  made  us 
slightly  uncomfortable.  The  tenacity  of  his  memory, 
working  habitually  with  almost  unerring  accuracy, 
could  be  rather  disconcerting.  He  had  a  way  of  re- 
marking in  the  most  incidental  manner,  "As  you 
once  said/'  following  with  quotation  of  words  which 
you  had  spoken  or  written  years  before.  You  said  in 
your  heart,  "Oh,  that  this  man  would  forget  a  few 
things/'  One  felt  that  all  the  follies  of  speech  ever 
uttered  in  his  hearing  were  on  record  somewhere  back 
of  those  sparkling  eyes.    And  unquestionably  a  mar- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  27 

vellous  record  of  human  follies  was  there  preserved.  As 
I  have  already  intimated,  perhaps  no  man  was  more 
familiar  with  the  long  story  of  human  mistakes  than 
he.  And  few  men  could  put  the  record  to  better  use, 
Dot  only  in  correcting  errors,  but  also  in  demonstrat- 
ing the  progress  of  thought  and  action  toward  the 
goal  of  ultimate  truth  in  conception  and  deed.  Though 
he  might  be  beating  up  errors,  his  trail  led  toward  the 
heights.  It  was  largely  his  critical  knowledge  of 
foibles,  failures  and  the  like  which  made  him  the 
skilful  pilot  he  was  for  those  who  were  sailing  on 
treacherous  seas,  and  the  invaluable  adviser  he  was  for 
any  poor  fellow  at  his  wits'  end,  wandering  amid  pit- 
falls and  all  sorts  of  perils.  His  keen  sense  of  the 
thing  not  to  do  in  a  perplexing  situation  made  him  a 
helpful  counsellor.  There  was  a  well-worn  path  to  his 
door  made  by  those  who  sought  his  counsel  in  matters 
where  their  wisdom  failed  and  their  heart  was  trou- 
bled aud  afraid.  Of  them  all,  where  is  the  one  who 
would  say  that  the  desired  counsel  was  not  freely  and 
graciously  given,  or  that  in  following  it  he  went 
astray?  But  by  retention  of  truth  I  refer  to  some- 
thing of  greater  depth  and  dignity  than  mere  memory. 
It  is  a  weakness  of  many  of  us  that  the  truth  of  yes- 
terday is  not  wholly  available  for  the  needs  of  today, 
not  so  much  for  the  reason  that  we  have  forgotten  the 
facts  of  yesterday  as  that  we  have  slipped  a  bit  from 
our  anchorage  in  those  facts  and  the  truth  deduced 
from  them.    Dr.  Little  perpetuated  his  reliances.    By 


28  IN  MEMORIAM 

retaining  his  masterful  grasp  of  principles  associated 
with  their  correlated  facts  he  was  able  to  abide  in  the 
truth  of  his  yesterdays. 

Here  was  a  man  who  made  a  man's  use  of  the 
truth.  He  never  puttered  with  massive  realities,  or 
on  the  other  hand,  dealt  with  small  questions  as  if  they 
were  mighty  issues.  Neither  the  heroisms  nor  the 
heroes  of  history  were  paraded  for  a  show,  but  sum- 
moned for  the  sake  of  producing  new  heroisms  and 
new  heroes.  When  Dr.  Little  brought  one  of  the 
great  men  of  a  former  time  into  your  presence  as  he 
did  an  Abraham  Lincoln  at  the  centennial  in  the 
Presbyterian  Church  two  years  ago,  you  looked  with 
awe  upon  a  man  of  might,  a  master  of  the  fateful 
forces  of  his  age,  and  yet 

"A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

He  could  make  a  great  man  live  before  us  in  a 
great  way  and  yet  in  a  distinctly  human  way.  Neither 
his  kings  nor  his  kingdoms  came  for  purposes  of  ob- 
servation alone,  but  chiefly  for  the  promotion  of  the 
valor  of  righteousness.  In  the  processes  of  his  thought 
pageants  might  be  created  and  move  before  us  in 
superb  array,  but  not  for  the  sake  of  the  pageant. 
Rather  for  the  sake  of  a  cause.  His  presidency  of 
this  Institute  came  in  a  period  when  some  things  were 
being  shaken,  even  to  the  point  of  being  removed,  in 
the  theological  world.  From  the  beginning  it  was  his 
steadfast  purpose,  frequently  avowed  in  these  later 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  29 

years  at  least,  to  maintain  a  mediating  attitude  in  the 
fields  of  biblical  and  theological  controversy — so  far 
as  such  an  attitude  could  be  maintained  in  the  inter- 
ests of  truth  and  not  at  all  at  the  expense  of  truth. 
Who  that  knew  the  man  and  his  work  would  deny 
either  that  he  was  exceptionally  equipped  for  such  a 
task  or  that  he  carried  out  his  purpose  with  consum- 
mate skill  ?  It  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  claim  for 
him  that  no  scholar  of  our  time  could  preserve  his 
balance  amid  jostling  theories  with  surer  poise  or  less 
hostile  attack.  In  an  age  of  religious  shift  and  drift 
he  endeavored  to  hold  people  to  confidence  in  the 
truth  and  keep  them  steady  on  secure  foundations. 
Faith,  though  weak  as  a  bruised  reed,  was  not  broken 
by  his  utterances  in  pulpit  or  in  private.  True,  the 
faith  of  some  who  sat  at  the  feet  of  this  teacher  might 
be  intelligently  changed,  but  it  was  not  unsettled.  Fur- 
thermore, the  truth  which  he  declared  to  others  was 
of  supreme  use  to  him  in  times  of  personal  crisis. 
When  death,  his  hated  foe,  smote  his  beloved  he  en- 
dured as  seeing  him  who  is  invisible,  the  Abolisher  of 
death.  When,  after  a  long  struggle  with  disease,  he 
came  to  the  ordeal  which  put  his  life  in  the  balance, 
his  spirit  was  calm  in  the  assurance  that  he  had  not 
followed  cunningly  devised  fables,  but  had  built  on 
everlasting  foundations  in  holding  to  the  faith  which 
was  once  for  all  delivered  unto  the  saints. 

But  after  all,  I  think  that  greater  than  any  of 
these  qualities  which  I  have  mentioned  was  his  pas- 
sion for  truth.    I  mean  far  more  than  that  his  spirit 


30  IN  MEMOKIAM 

was  eager  in  its  quest  and  aglow  in  its  contemplation, 
although  nothing  truer  than  that  could  be  said.  But 
beyond  that  he  was  passionately  insistent  upon  loyalty 
to  truth.  He  was  valiant  for  the  truth  upon  the 
earth ;  an  ardent  champion  of  sincerity,  the  indignant 
foe  of  every  species  of  lie.  You  well  know  that 
his  light  was  not  without  heat.  There  were  times 
when  it  seemed  as  if  the  elements  of  his  nature  must 
melt  with  fervent  heat.  His  passion  for  truth  was  so 
intense  that  he  could  be  almost  fierce  in  its  expression, 
and  altogether  belligerent  in  its  defense.  His  heart 
burned  within  him  in  holy  aversion  to  a  sham.  He  had 
no  patience  with  ecclesiastical  intrigue,  no  mercy  on 
pious  finesse  for  unworthy  ends.  Fine  scorn  had  he 
for  the  creature  who  pares  his  manhood  to  gain  a 
place.  So  exacting  were  his  standards  of  purity  and 
righteousness  that  nothing  vile  dared  reveal  its  foul- 
ness in  his  presence.  So  keen  was  his  perception  of 
the  unworthy  and  so  hot  his  indignation  against  every 
taint  and  trace  of  meanness  that  to  some  persons  his 
judgments  seemed  at  times  to  be  severe.  They  were 
ready  to  exclaim,  "Oh,  the  goodness  and  the  severity 
of  this  man \"  But  if  goodness  is  not  to  be  flabby  it 
must  at  some  points  be  severe. 

During  the  years  of  his  presidency  in  this  place 
what  went  ye  out  for  to  see  ?  A  scholar  ?  Yea,  I  say 
unto  you,  and  more  than  a  scholar.  It  has  been  of 
inestimable  value  to  Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  to  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  and  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  to  have  had  at  the  head  of  this  school  and  in  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  31 

highest  councils  of  the  church  this  clear-headed  and 
true-hearted  witness  to  the  truth — this  man  of  stern 
and  unwavering  loyalty  to  the  truth  in  his  personal 
life — this  man  who  would  not  justify  in  any  minister 
of  the  gospel  from  theological  student  to  general  su- 
perintendent the  least  conscious  divergence  from  the 
truth  in  character  or  act. 


MEMOEIAL  ADDRESS 
Professor  Milton  S.  Terry,  D.  D.,  LL.  D. 

THE  ability,  scholarship,  learning  and  various  ac- 
complishments of  our  distinguished  colleague  and 
president  have  commanded  the  admiration  of  every 
member  of  the  faculty  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute. 
Meeting  him  as  we  have  done  day  after  day  through 
many  years  in  the  usual  routine  of  our  work  of  min- 
isterial training,  we  could  not  but  observe  and  appre- 
ciate his  splendid  gifts,  and  his  superior  equipment 
for  the  work  of  a  teacher  in  a  school  like  ours. 

Charles  Joseph  Little  was  so  fortunately  born  as 
to  inherit  sundry  advantages  not  allotted  to  many.  I 
may  be  somewhat  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the  old  time 
claims  of  elementary  classical  training,  namely,  that 
the  finer  culture  of  the  intellect  and  of  nice  distinc- 
tions of  thought  is  more  effectually  secured  by  the 
discipline  of  linguistic  studies  than  in  other  ways. 
One  who  is  an  easy  master  in  the  command  of  sen- 
tentious and  powerful  expressions  of  thought  must  be 
deeply  versed  in  the  subtilties  of  human  speech. 
Happy  is  he  who,  by  his  early  familiarity  with  sev- 
eral different  tongues,  inherits  intuitively  a  practical 
science  of  language.  Who  can  estimate  or  analyze  the 
fine  acuteness  of  mental  grasp  most  naturally  secured 
by  one  who  grows  up  in  the  ready  but  half  uncon- 
32 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  33 

scious  use  of  two  or  more  languages?  To  such  su- 
perior elementary  advantages  our  friend  added  early 
in  life  a  personal  delight  in  reading  many  books  of 
solid  value.  The  completion  of  his  college  course  at 
the  age  of  twenty-one  is  a  witness  of  his  educational 
attainments  at  a  time  when  a  collegiate  training  was 
not  as  common  as  it  is  today. 

A  young  man  of  such  exceptional  gifts  and  at- 
tainments could  not  long  be  kept  in  the  pastorate.  It 
seems  a  great  pity  that  such  a  statement  is  true  unto 
this  day.  Dr.  Little  was  richly  endowed  to  serve  as 
an  ideal  preacher  and  pastor,  and  he  lacked  no  ability 
for  becoming  an  able  leader  in  any  church,  or  con- 
ference, or  in  any  one  of  the  great  religious  bodies  of 
our  land.  But  other  fields,  supposedly  more  dif- 
ficult to  fill,  were  calling  for  him.  We  have  only  to 
name  Dickinson  Seminary,  Dickinson  College,  Syra- 
cuse University  and  Garrett  Biblical  Institute  to  be 
impressed  with  the  extent  and  character  of  his  work 
in  the  fields  of  higher  education.  His  remarkable 
versatility  is  shown  by  his  apparently  equal  readiness 
to  occupy  the  chair  of  mathematics,  or  of  logic,  or 
of  philosophy,  or  of  history.  He  might  also  have 
accepted  on  short  notice  the  professorship  of  Greek, 
or  of  Latin,  or  of  German,  or  of  French,  or  of  Italian, 
in  any  institution  of  our  country.  What  a  splendid  suc- 
cess he  would  have  been  in  a  chair  of  the  English  lan- 
guage and  literature !  His  varied  studies  and  observa- 
tions in  Europe  added  to  the  encyclopaedic  fulness  of 
hie  acquisitions. 


34  IN  MEMORIAM 

I  can  never  forget  two  impromptu  addresses  made 
by  Dr.  Little  within  a  month  of  his  death,  one  before 
the  Chicago  Methodist  Preachers'  Meeting,  and  the 
other  at  the  last  banquet  of  the  Garrett  alumni,  both 
of  which  were,  in  my  judgment,  equal  to  anything 
I  ever  heard  from  his  lips.  On  both  occasions  the 
burden  of  his  heart  was  to  point  out  the  purpose  and 
the  limits  of  a  theological  school,  and  the  delicacy  of 
handling  the  peculiar  problems  of  modern  critical 
thought.  He  exposed  the  error  of  some  who  imagine 
that  a  school  like  ours  ought  to  be  a  kind  of  social  and 
religious  university,  enlarging  its  curriculum  so  as  to 
include  an  indefinite  number  of  studies  in  addition  to 
those  which  years  and  years  of  experience  have  found 
to  be  fundamental  and  essential  to  the  highest  min- 
isterial training.  With  the  clear  vision  of  a  Christian 
statesman  he  showed  the  impracticable  character  of 
such  enlargements  of  the  work  of  a  school  founded 
for  a  definite  and  necessarily  limited  purpose,  and 
with  a  class  of  students  already  overtaxed  with  tasks 
of  prime  importance. 

He  also  exposed  the  ignorance  and  the  narrowness 
of  hasty  talkers  who  go  about  declaring  that  our 
schools  of  theology  are  nurseries  of  skepticism  and 
unbelief.  The  questions  of  modern  critical  thought 
are  thrust  upon  the  attention  of  our  schools,  whether 
we  will  or  not.  Our  students  bring  these  questions 
with  them  from  their  homes,  from  the  high  schools, 
from  the  academies  and  colleges,  and  they  ask  us  to 
help  them  solve  their  doubt  and  queries.     However 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  35 

they  originated,  these  critical  problems  are  to  be  found 
today  in  the  daily  newspaper,  in  the  popular  maga- 
zines, in  the  great  cyclopaedias,  in  the  dictionaries  of 
the  Bible,  and  in  all  modern  commentaries  on  the 
Scriptures.  Doctor  Little  pointed  out  with  great 
force  and  clearness  that  there  can  be  no  honest  treat- 
ment of  either  Catholic  or  Protestant  Modernism  ex- 
cept by  the  authority  of  convincing  argument.  His 
deep  studies  in  history  and  philosophy  made  him  sus- 
picious of  the  moral  soundness  of  a  man  who  clamors 
for  the  infallibility  of  external  authority  rather  than 
that  of  self-evidencing  truth.  He  sought  rather  to 
magnify  the  personal  responsibility  of  conscientious 
effort  in  proving  all  things  and  holding  fast  that  which 
is  demonstrably  good.  And  I  think  he  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  crab-cry  "Back  to  Christ ;"  he  would 
rather  have  us  say,  with  all  possible  emphasis,  "For- 
ward with  Christ."  We  cannot  ignore  or  forget  our 
glorious  inheritance  from  former  revelations,  but  ours 
also  is  Heaven's  last  great  gift,  the  Comforter  divine. 
The  work  of  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  to  "abide  with  us 
and  to  guide  us  into  all  the  truth."  Filled  with  this 
illuminating  Spirit  and  girded  with  his  gifts  of  power, 
we  may,  like  Jesus  himself,  say,  "My  Father  worketh 
hitherto,  and  I  work."  The  vision  of  the  Christly  soul 
is  not  so  much  a  backward  look  as  a  looking  forward 
for  fuller  and  deeper  disclosures  of  the  true  Light  of 
the  world.  When  that  great  Light  is  shining  on  our 
way,  a  bigoted  or  a  stupid  looking  backward  may  re- 
sult in  our  becoming  something  even  more  pitiable 


36  IN  MEMOKIAM 

than  a  pillar  of  salt.  We  must,  however,  look  in  many 
ways  and  from  many  points  of  view  in  order  to  ob- 
tain the  fuller  vision  of  the  truths  of  God  in  Christ. 
Such  in  substance  and  logic,  not,  of  course,  in  words, 
was  the  purport  of  the  two  addresses — probably  the 
last  public  speeches  of  his  life. 

There  have  been  many  expressions  of  regret  that 
a  man  of  such  extraordinary  acquirements  should  have 
left  so  little  in  a  written  form.  His  Fernley  Lecture, 
his  volume  entitled  "The  Angel  in  the  Flame,"  and 
numerous  Review  articles  and  published  addresses 
evince  his  transcendent  ability  as  a  thinker  and  writer. 
They  set  us  meditating  what  he  might  have  done. 
Some  of  us  used  to  admonish  him  of  this,  and  he  was 
wont  to  answer,  "Oh,  Jesus  didn't  write  any  books." 
But  it  was  answered,  Paul  did  write,  and  so  did 
Augustine,  and  Luther,  and  Bunyan,  and  Wesley  and 
Jonathan  Edwards.  Let  one  read  Dr.  Little's  address 
at  the  Baltimore  Centennial  of  1884,  or  that  given  at 
the  semi-centennial  of  this  Institute  in  1905,  and  if 
he  have  any  spiritual  penetration,  he  will  see  behind 
those  utterances  a  mighty  angel  all  aflame,  and  wish 
that  he  had,  in  written  form,  many  another  message 
from  the  same  burning  source. 

Though  seemingly  snatched  away  from  us  before 
his  time,  and  leaving  a  vacancy  no  other  man  can  fill, 
his  end  was  a  euthanasia  such  as  he  himself  might 
well  have  wished.  His  last  meeting  with  our  faculty 
was  just  after  our  regular  chapel  service,  when  we 
lingered  a  short  time  here  on  this  platform  to  trans- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  37 

act  some  business  that  required  immediate  attention. 
Cheerful  and  serene  in  spirit,  he  parted  from  us  and 
went  his  homeward  way.  He  spent  the  pleasant  eve- 
ning hours  among  those  most  near  and  dear  to  him 
on  earth,  and  at  the  dawn  of  the  morning  following 
he  was  not,  for  God  had  taken  him. 

We  all  know  how  he  loved  the  great  German  poets, 
and  how  familiar  he  was  with  them.  The  first  time 
I  ever  heard  him  lecture  he  spoke  in  highest  terms  of 
Goethe's  "Faust,"  and  extolled  particularly  what  he 
called  its  "inimitable  dedication."  I  have  often  re- 
called his  manner  and  his  words  on  that  occasion,  and 
found  myself  repeating  over  and  over  the  first  line 
of  Bayard  Taylor's  German  tribute  to  Goethe  prefixed 
to  his  translation  of  the  Faust.  How  appropriately  it 
might  now  be  addressed  to  our  exalted  friend ! 

"Erhdbener  Geist,  im  Geisterreich  verloren!" 

Imitating  it  somewhat,  may  I  not  speak  for  all  of 
you  and  say :  "0  rare  and  regal  spirit,  lost  from  our 
vision  in  the  spirit  world,  thou  canst  never  be  forgot- 
ten. In  the  mists  of  the  morning  thou  didst  ascend 
into  the  opening  heavens,  and  long  will  thy  devoted 
pupils  gaze  after  thee  and  cry,  'My  father,  my  father, 
the  chariot  of  Israel.'  Angels  about  the  tree  of  life 
had  need  of  thee  in  the  Paradise  of  God.  Caught  up 
into  those  holy  heavens,  thou  wilt  yet  speak  to  us 
below,  and  our  lives  henceforth  shall  be  richer  for 
memories  of  thee." 


MEMOEIAL  ADDEESS  FOR  THE  ALUMNI 
Eev.  John  Thompson,  Class  of  1899. 

DOCTOR  PATTEN,  in  his  opening  prayer  of  holy 
meditation  before  God,  said,  "Our  friend  comes  not 
with  us  to  the  festivities  of  the  week."  But  my  mem- 
ory has  been  wonderfully  vitalized  in  the  midst  of 
these  surroundings  and  I  feel  the  Doctor's  spirit  is 
hovering  near.  I  put  the  trumpet  to  my  imagina- 
tion and  I  can  hear  him  read  from  this  Bible  and 
lead  us  in  prayer  and  lecture  in  that  room;  I  can 
see  him  going  through  these  halls  and  down  the 
campus  toward  his  home.  It  is  all  so  real  he  can- 
not be  far  away  from  us  at  this  hour,  and  in  speak- 
ing for  the  Alumni  I  bring  a  heart's  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  him  whom  I  loved  as  a  friend,  trusted  as 
a  counselor,  and  revered  as  a  teacher. 

Having  known  professors  in  the  old  land,  it  was 
interesting  to  me  to  study  the  type  of  man  elected 
to  the  presidency  of  a  theological  seminary  of  the 
Methodists  of  this  great  new  country.  As  students 
in  the  class  rooms  we  sat  as  so  many  living  cameras 
on  which  impressions  were  projected.  In  Dr.  Little's 
room  I  was  first  of  all  impressed  with  his  unique  and 
dynamic  personality.  All  personalities  are  unique, 
here  there  are  no  duplicates,  souls  have  noidoubles. 
We  are  all  originals.  But  his  was  an  unusually 
38 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  39 

striking  and  masterful  personality.  Scientists  assure 
us  that  the  shadow  of  a  bird's  wing,  or  of  a  passing 
cloud  falling  on  a  bed  of  flowers,  will  permanently 
affect  their  fragrance  and  beauty ;  and  Peter's  shadow 
was  thought  to  possess  magical  influence,  so  the 
people  brought  their  sick  that  his  shadow  might  fall 
on  them.  If  physical  shadows  have  effects  on  life, 
who  can  measure  the  influence  of  this  strong  per- 
sonality on  the  life  of  the  students?  This  great 
teacher's  face  was  ever  toward  the  light,  and  as  we 
followed  him  his  shadow  fell  on  us,  and  what  stu- 
dent's life  was  not  thus  made  richer,  stronger,  fuller? 
The  height  of  the  mountain,  the  depth  of  sea,  the 
speed  of  the  wind,  the  bulk  of  the  planets,  and  the 
pressure  of  the  atmosphere  can  be  measured,  but 
the  influence  of  his  personality  cannot  be  known  till 
the  books  are  opened  and  the  chronicles  of  souls  are 
read. 

The  second  impression  came  from  his  extraordi- 
nary versatility.  He  was  the  fullest  man  I  ever 
met.  The  fulness  of  his  knowledge  was  a  constant 
marvel  to  all  who  knew  him. 

In  the  days  when  I  was  deciding  which  theological 
school  to  attend,  an  alumnus  of  Garrett  said,  "Go  to 
Garrett  and  if  you  get  nothing  more  than  what  comes 
from  Doctor  Little  in  the  'asides'  of  his  class  hours 
you  will  be  amply  compensated."  I  am  sure  every 
member  of  the  Alumni  who  had  the  privilege  of  his 
classes  could  make  such  affirmation  today.  Those 
hours  when  in  response  to  questions  the  fountains  of 


40  IN  MEMOEIAM 

his  knowledge  were  opened,  can  never  be  forgotten. 
We  felt  that  if  there  was  any  theme  on  which  he 
could  not  talk  intelligently  for  an  hour,  that  theme 
had  not  yet  been  discovered.  He  created  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  we  saw  the  facts  and  movements  of 
history.  He  opened  up  to  us  the  avenues  of  knowl- 
edge and  gave  the  soul  a  mighty  impulse  in  search 
for  truth.  He  was  a  superb  pollenizer  of  others' 
minds.  It  has  been  said  here  today  that  he  wrote 
few  books,  and  we  all  wish  he  had  written  more 
books — but  he  did  write  on  the  imperishable  tablets 
of  the  souls  of  his  students  and  helped  to  make  their 
lives  cornucopias  of  blessing. 

Another  impression  came  from  his  magnificent 
capacity  for  indignation.  He  had  no  patience  with 
laziness  and  he  hated  shams  with  a  burning  hate. 
It  seemed  sometimes  as  if  he  would  explode  when 
he.  discovered  evidences  of  insincerity  and  indiffer- 
ence on  the  part  of  a  student.  We  all  knew  what  it 
meant  when  such  an  one  was  called  into  his  office 
after  class  hour,  and  were  not  surprised  if  later  we 
saw  the  delinquent  leaving  the  campus  in  company 
with  the  expressman  who  was  taking  his  belongings 
to  the  depot.  He  could  be  piously  impatient,  right- 
eously indignant  and  religiously  angry  with  the  drone 
and  the  sham,  but  he  was  always  a  judicious  encour- 
ager  of  students  making  honest,  earnest,  successful 
effort  to  achieve.  He  had  no  patience  with  such  care- 
lessness in  the  mastery  of  dates  as  led  to  the  mixing 
up  of  unborn  babes  and  dead  men.     Dates  were  to 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  41 

him  the  bolts  which  held  history  together,  and  he 
insisted  on  their  being  correctly  fixed  in  the  mind. 

He  taught  us  how  to  grasp  the  underlying  phil- 
osophy in  any  movement  in  history  and  to  distin- 
guish between  the  men  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  in 
any  movement  and  the  men  who  made  the  wave 
possible.  Indifference  in  such  vital  matters  never 
failed  to  arouse  his  displeasure,  but  when  he  saw  a 
student  had  learned  to  focus  facts  and  events  his 
joy  was  very  manifest.  Not  more  delighted  is  the 
gardener  when  he  sees  the  green  blade  and  the  bud 
appear,  or  the  mother  when  she  sees  the  mind  of 
her  babe  opening  to  its  environment,  than  was  this 
noble  teacher  when  he  saw  assiduity  and  progress  in 
his  students.  But  woe  to  the  sham  who  scamped 
his  work;  he  was  sure  to  be  the  victim  of  bloodless 
decapitation  when  the  doctor's  impatience  was  kindled 
but  a  little.  He  had  no  patience  with  frivolous  dis- 
putation and  any  student  who  entered  into  this  would 
find  himself  the  subject  of  nerveless  dentistry. 

But  the  deepest  impressions  came  from  Doctor 
Little's  religious  life.  He  was  a  profoundly  reverent 
man.  All  truth  to  him  was  sacred  and  all  life 
religious  and  related  to  God.  We  can  never  forget 
how  reverently  he  spoke  of  God  and  of  the  deep 
things  of  the  religious  life.  When  he  was  led  aside 
from  the  assigned  lesson  and  talked  about  Christian 
experience,  what  hours  they  were  Watts'  lines  would 
come  into  the  mind  as  we  left  the  room. 


42  IN  MEMOEIAM 

"I  have  been  there  and  still  would  go, 
"lis  like  a  little  heaven  below." 

He  could  lift  us  clear  above  the  foothills  into  the 
atmosphere  of  the  spiritual. 

Pardon  me  a  more  directly  personal  word  here. 
We  each  passed  under  the  rod  and  our  homes  were 
broken  by  the  bereavement  that  splits  the  life  in 
two.  His  loss  came  a  little  before  mine,  and  in  the 
dark  days  when  I  was  relaying  the  foundations  of 
my  faith  I  went  to  him  and  found  this  strong, 
dynamic  personality  quivering  with  sensitiveness  and 
truest  sympathy.  He  was  to  me  then  as  the  shadow 
of  a  great  rock  in  the  day  of  fierce  heat.  The  cedar 
diffuses  its  fragrance  after  it  is  dead,  and  the  light 
of  stars  that  have  long  years  ago  passed  beyond  the 
range  of  the  telescope  is  still  falling  on  us;  so  the 
shadow  of  his  personality  and  the  influence  of  his 
life  work  will  abide  with  us  in  all  the  years  to  come. 

"Can  that  man  be  dead 
Whose  spiritual  influence  is  upon  his  kind? 
He  lives  in  glory;  and  such  speaking  dust 
Has  more  of  life  than  half  its  breathing  moulds." 

Farewell,  beloved  friend,  noble  Christian,  revered 
teacher,  till  the  shadows  flee  away  and  we  meet  thee 
in  the  land  where  the  light  abides  and  darkness  never 
falls. 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 
Mr.  Frank  P.  Crandon 

THE  several  addresses  to  which  we  have  just  lis- 
tened have  so  admirably  and  so  adequately  referred 
to  the  various  relations  which  Dr.  Little  sustained  to 
Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  its  plans,  its  work,  its  his- 
tory and  its  hopes,  that  further  reference  to  them 
would  be  devoid  of  interest.  The  three  minutes  which 
have  been  allotted  to  me  will  be  devoted  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  Doctor's  personal  qualities  and  serv- 
ices. I  expect  to  keep  within  the  assigned  limits, 
although  no  amount  of  time,  nor  an  ability  which  I 
possess,  would  enable  me  to  give  appropriate  expres- 
sion to  the  estimate  in  which  Dr.  Little  was  held  by 
all  of  the  members  of  the  Institute  community. 

Although  he  was  for  a  long  time,  the  "President  of 
Garrett,"  the  title  by  which  he  is  known  is  altogether 
insufficient  to  indicate  either  the  extent  or  the  qual- 
ity of  his  services  to  the  institution,  his  relation  to 
his  associates,  or  his  interest  in  them  and  the  results 
of  their  work.  To  the  Board  of  Trustees,  he  was  a 
veritable  Fidus  Achates,  in  whose  wisdom  as  well  as 
whose  fidelity  they  were  accustomed  to  confide ;  to  his 
associates  in  the  faculty,  he  was  both  an  inspiration 
and  a  support.  They  gladly  joined  him  in  his  plans 
for  the  development  of  the  work  of  the  school,  and 
43 


44  IN  MEMORIAM 

he  shared  with  them  fully  the  burdens  which  they 
had  jointly  assumed,  and  to  the  students  and  the 
alumni  he  was  ever  the  sympathetic  director,  the 
inspirational  teacher,  almost  a  paternal  counsellor 
whose  interest  in  them  was  not  only  continuous 
through  the  years  of  their  academic  experience,  but 
followed  them  to  their  various  fields  of  labor  and 
remained  with  them  as  a  continuing  benediction. 

In  what  phrase  shall  I  speak  of  one  who  was  our 
guide  and  counsellor,  mentor  and  teacher,  to  the 
young  men  almost  a  father,  and  to  all  of  us, 
altogether  a  friend! 

The  addresses  which  we  have  heard  have  caused  us 
to  realize  as  never  before  the  irreparable  loss,  which, 
in  the  death  of  President  Little,  Garrett  has  sus- 
tained, and  how  grievously  the  institution  and  its 
friends  have  been  stricken.  Referring  to  this  afflic- 
tion, a  friend  recently  said  to  me:  "I  try  to  believe 
and  I  do  believe,  that  somewhere  the  Great  Master 
has  a  more  important  work  for  President  Little  than 
he  was  doing  here,  but  where  it  is,  or  what  it  can 
be,  I  do  not  and  I  cannot  understand."  In  our 
affliction  we  remind  ourselves  that  these  issues  are 
in  the  care  of  Him  who  sees  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  who  guides  and  controls  the  affairs  both 
of  this  world  and  the  world  that  is  to  come.  In  His 
wisdom  and  goodness  is  our  trust,  for  we  know  that 
"He  doeth  all  things  well." 

No  form  of  words  can  give  expression  to  what  the 
presence  and  personality  of  Dr.  Little  meant  to  Gar- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  45 

rett  Biblical  Institute.  In  an  important  sense  he  was 
the  inspiration  and  guide  of  its  activities,  the  director 
of  its  energies,  its  faithful  friend  when  obstacles  lay 
in  the  path  of  its  achievements,  its  able  and  efficient 
defender  when  its  plans  or  its  teachings  were  assailed. 
Under  such  a  leadership,  difficulties  vanished  and 
success  was  assured. 

His  equipment  for  the  great  office  which  he  so 
ably  administered  was  unique  and  comprehensive. 
His  varied  and  extensive  learning,  his  eloquence, 
his  almost  unequaled  power  of  statement,  the  accuracy 
of  his  information,  his  experience  in  administration 
and  in  dealing  with  men  and  with  affairs,  and  that 
peculiar  personality  which  compelled  the  admiration 
and  co-operation  of  those  who  came  under  his  influ- 
ence, were  the  elements  of  a  splendid  leadership,  and 
secured  to  him  the  confidence  and  the  loyalty  of  all 
who  knew  him. 

No  estimate  of  Dr.  Little  is  adequate  or  compre- 
hensive that  does  not  take  ample  account  of  his  broad 
and  generous  sympathies  and  his  capacity  for  genuine 
Hid  enduring  friendships.  Like  his  Master,  he  was 
willing  to  spend  and  be  spent  for  the  suffering  and 
the  afflicted.  His  heart  and  his  intellect  were  fash- 
ioned in  the  same  mold.  His  friendships  knew  no 
!h >undarie8  or  limitations. 

Most  thoroughly  do  I  appreciate  the  compliment  of 

an  invitation  to  participate  in  these  commemorative 

ices.    The  part  which  has  been  assigned  to  me  is 

not  difficult  or  conspicuous,  but  the  opportunity  to 


46  IN  MEMOEIAM 

bear  public  testimony  to  the  noble  qualities  of  my 
friend  is  an  inexpressible  privilege. 

It  is  fitting  that  in  this  enduring  form,  the  name 
and  memory  of  so  great  a  man  should  be  perpetuated, 
but  those  of  us  who  knew  Dr.  Little  need  no  monu- 
ment or  token  to  remind  us  of  him  or  of  his  great 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart.  These  have  been  graven 
with  the  pencil  of  love  in  memories  that  will  endure 
forever.    They  are  as  imperishable  as  eternity. 

But  that  those  who  in  the  coming  years  shall 
frequent  these  halls  may  know  of  him,  may  learn 
about  him,  and  be  inspired  by  memories  of  his  life, 
his  character  and  work,  a  tablet  has  been  prepared 
which  bears  his  name  and  an  inscription  which  is 
worthy  of  him  and  of  which  he  is  worthy. 

This  tablet  it  is  my  privilege  to  unveil  and  in  so 
doing  there  is  presented  for  your  approval  a  name 
which  all  shall  honor,  a  memory  that  all  will  cherish. 


RESOLUTIONS  AND  TRIBUTES 


THE    TRUSTEES    OF    GARRETT    BIBLICAL 
INSTITUTE 

WHEN  in  the  early  morning  of  March  11,  1911, 
death  claimed  President  Little  as  its  victim,  the 
event  was  so  sudden,  so  unexpected,  and  so  seem- 
ingly disastrous  to  the  plans  and  hopes  of  the  institu- 
tion of  which  he  was  the  beloved  and  honored  chief, 
that  its  announcement  could  scarcely  be  realized  or 
credited,  either  by  his  faculty  associates  or  his  most 
intimate  companions  and  friends. 

Only  recently  he  had  returned  from  a  protracted 
vacation,  which  a  serious  surgical  operation  had  ren- 
dered necessary,  but  from  the  effects  of  which  he  was 
understood  to  have  entirely  recovered.  With  his  old- 
time  vigor  and  enthusiasm,  he  had  reassumed  his 
administrative  and  educational  labors  and  responsi- 
bilities. His  presence  in  the  halls  of  the  Institute,  on 
the  campus  and  in  the  classrooms,  had  given  a  new 
zest  to  all  the  life  and  work  and  activities  of  Garrett, 
and  under  the  inspiration  of  his  vigorous  administra- 
tion, everyone  joined  to  welcome  a  future  for  Garrett 
brighter  than  any  which  the  institution  had  previously 
known.  *' '  jq] 

Almost  instantaneously  and  without  warning,  this 
fair  prospect  was  dispelled.  The  leader,  whom  all 
delighted  to  follow,  was  stricken,  and  the  blow  fell 
49 


50  IN  MEMORIAM 

with  a  benumbing  weight  on  students,  faculty,  trustees 
and  friends  of  the  Institute.  Twenty  years  of  his 
forceful,  active,  commanding  personality  had  been 
woven  into  the  history  and  achievements  of  Garrett, 
and  when  with  a  startling  suddenness  we  were  told 
that  he  had  passed  away,  the  very  foundations  of  the 
institution  seemed  to  be  shaken,  and  for  a  moment 
the  effect  was  overwhelming  and  the  loss  apparently 
irreparable. 

So  intimately  were  we  accustomed  to  associate  the 
individuality  of  President  Little  with  all  of  Garrett's 
interests  when  thinking  about  either  of  them,  that 
if  the  possibility  of  their  separation  had  ever  sug- 
gested itself,  it  was  dismissed  as  being  a  contingency 
so  remote  that  its  consideration  was  easily  and 
instinctively  postponed. 

The  administration  of  President  Little  had  been 
coincident  with  the  period  of  the  Institute's  greatest 
prosperity. 

In  all  the  departments,  notable  advancement  was 
everywhere  in  evidence.  Important  additions  had 
been  made  to  the  faculty.  A  library  of  almost 
inestimable  value,  and  of  a  quality  so  unique  that 
its  duplication  is  impossible,  had  been  collected  and 
adequately  housed.  While  in  many  theological  schools 
the  attendance  had  so  dwindled  as  to  occasion 
serious  concern,  and  great  anxiety  was  felt  as  to  the 
sources  of  supply  for  the  future  demands  of  the 
ministerial  profession,  the  student  body  of  Garrett 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  51 

had  been  greatly  increased  and  its  quality  was  a 
source  of  '-constantly  increasing  gratification.  Its 
alumni  were  found  scattered  throughout  the  various 
Methodist  Conferences,  and  doing  service  in  every 
mission  field  of  the  church — even  in  the  most  remote 
places  of  the  earth.  Under  the  shaping  hand  of  a 
great  teacher,  these  men  had  been  well  equipped  for 
usefulness  and  responsibility.  They  were  animated 
by  a  spirit  similar  to  his  own,  and  they  shared  in 
his  devotion  to  the  great  work  to  which  he  and  they 
had  been  called.  They  were  inspired  by  his  courage, 
cheered  by  his  example  and  emulated  his  consecration 
to  the  cause  in  which  they  were  enlisted.  Through 
this  body  of  earnest,  loyal  followers,  many  of  the 
splendid  qualities  of  a  great  master  are  being  repro- 
duced and  multiplied  wherever  the  work  of  Methodism 
is  being  carried  on. 

Few  men  in  the  history  of  the  church  have  come 
to  their  work  with  so  rich  an  endowment  as  that 
which  was  possessed  by  Dr.  Little.  His  mental 
operations  were  rapid  and  his  memory  phenomenally 
retentive.  His  perceptions  were  clear,  accurate  and 
comprehensive.  Intuitively  he  detected  whatever  of 
error  was  contained  in  any  proposition  that  he  was 
called  upon  to  consider.  His  logic  was  resistless,  and 
whether  it  was  employed  to  support  a  worthy  cause, 
or  to  expose  a  false  or  fraudulent  claim,  it  was  equally 
potent  when  used  either  as  a  weapon  of  attack  or 
defense.    These  qualities  rendered  him  formidable  as 


52  IN  MEMOEIAM 

an  antagonist  and  invaluable  as  an  ally  in  any  contest 
or  debate. 

His  preaching  was  eloquent,  inspiring,  instructive, 
and  convincing.  Whatever  the  theme  of  his  discourse, 
its  treatment  was  sure  to  be  novel  and  its  presentation 
to  bear  the  impress  of  his  own  mental  characteristics. 
His  conclusions  were  inevitable  deductions  from  the 
various  propositions  which  had  been  under  discus- 
sion, and  which  seemed  to  have  been  so  adequately 
established  that  controversy  concerning  them  had  been 
eliminated. 

He  was  a  brilliant  essayist.  Many  of  his  papers 
which  he  had  read  before  various  literary  and  scientific 
societies  displayed  a  wealth  of  learning,  a  compre- 
hensive knowledge  of  his  subject,  a  clearness  of  state- 
ment and  an  elegance  of  diction  rarely  equaled  in 
any  literature.  It  is  doubtful  if  Methodism  has  ever 
known  a  man  of  more  brilliant  attainments,  or  of 
greater  intellectual  power. 

His  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  rendered  him  most 
delightful  as  a  companion  and  invaluable  as  a  friend. 
In  the  social  circle  he  was  incomparable.  Wit,  humor, 
anecdote  and  repartee  seemed  to  be  his  natural  en- 
vironment, while  his  gentle  and  kindly  consideration 
for  others  rendered  him  equally  the  friend  and  com- 
panion of  children,  and  the  admired  guest  of  grave 
and  reverend  men.  The  friendships  of  such  a  man 
must  be  like  himself:  generous,  firm,  enduring,  un- 
selfish, pure.  Fortunate  indeed  were  those  who  en- 
joyed such  a  relationship  to  him. 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  53 

Altogether  apart  from  his  charming  personal  quali- 
ties, the  Board  of  Garrett  Trustees  had  through  many 
years  learned  to  so  confide  in  his  judgment,  and  to 
so  trust  his  advice  and  skill  in  all  matters  of  adminis- 
tration, that  his  sudden  removal  created  a  situation 
too  difficult  to  be  easily  comprehended.  We  could 
only  realize  that  we  had  been  overtaken  by  a  great 
calamity. 

Certain  problems,  which  at  one  time  it  was  feared 
might  in  a  measure  imperil  some  of  the  interests  of 
the  institution,  had  been  grappled  with  and  had  been 
satisfactorily  solved.  The  clouds  had  rolled  away,  and 
as  we  looked  to  the  future,  the  promise  it  presented 
was,  that, 

"Tomorrow  shall  be  as  this  day 
And  much  more  abundant." 

For  that  future  we  had  planned  not  only  hopefully 
but  generously.  In  all  these  plans,  Dr.  Little  was  the 
central  and  controlling  personality.  Now  in  an  instant 
he  was  taken  from  us,  and  to  the  question  "On  whom 
will  his  mantle  fall  ?"  and  "Who  is  sufficient  for  these 
things?"  there  came  no  ready  response. 

Even  in  this  extremity,  in  the  presence  of  so  great 
a  sorrow  and  affliction,  we  remind  ourselves  that 
Garrett  and  all  of  its  related  interests  are  under  the 
guardianship  of  a  Providence  whose  wisdom  is  un- 
erring and  whose  protective  care  is  equal  to  every 
emergency.    In  this  hour  of  supreme  trial  when  heart 


54  IN  MEMORIAM 

and  flesh  failed  us,  we  looked  upward  asking  for  that 
divine  assistance  which  would  enable  us  to  say — "0 
Lord,  Thy  will  be  done," 

T.  P.  Frost, 
F.  P.  Crandon, 

Committee. 


THE  FACULTY  OF  GAEEETT  BIBLICAL 
INSTITUTE 

THE  faculty  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  with 
a  profound  sense  of  personal  bereavement  and  of 
irreparable  loss,  record  the  death  of  Charles  Joseph 
Little,  our  honored  and  beloved  President  and  Pro- 
fessor of  Historical  Theology.  No  calamity  would 
seem  for  the  present  to  be  more  grievous.  Suddenly 
has  the  strong  man  fallen;  the  idolized  teacher  has 
ceased  to  speak;  the  powerful,  captivating  spirit  has 
vanished,  called  away  at  the  breaking  of  the  day. 

Our  Institute  has,  for  twenty  years  past,  been 
honored  and  adorned  with  the  ripe  fruitage  of  this 
inestimable  life.  Dr.  Little  became  our  professor  of 
historical  theology  in  1891,  and  president  in  1895. 
Both  as  teacher  and  as  president  he  magnified  his 
office.  His  colleagues  in  the  faculty  can  never  forget 
his  many  kindly  words,  his  tender  sympathy,  his 
deference  to  the  feelings  and  the  judgment  of  his 
brethren.  We  grieve  that  we  shall  see  his  face  no 
more  among  us  here.  We  record  with  affection  and 
pride  his  early  academic  and  collegiate  training,  his 
later  studies  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  his  double 
birthright  of  American  and  German  opportunities, 
his  superior  attainments,  especially  in  history,  in 
philosophy  and  in  logic,  his  wonderful  command  of 
55 


56  IN  MEMOEIAM 

English  expression,  and  his  rare  power  of  dramatic 
presentation.  The  greater  part  of  his  life  was  spent 
in  the  work  of  higher  education,  and  his  services  in 
Dickinson  College  and  in  Syracuse  University  were  a 
splendid  preparation  for  his  crowning  work  in  Evans- 
ton.  The  class  room  was  the  throne  of  his  greatest 
efficiency,  and  there  was  his  transcendent  and  mag- 
netic personality  often  seen  at  its  best.  How  striking 
his  epigrammatic  phrases!  How  vivid  and  lastingly 
impressive  his  outlines  of  the  mighty  movements  of 
human  life !  And  yet  how  careful  was  he  to  ascertain 
the  real  facts  of  history  and  to  warn  against  the 
danger  of  hasty  conclusions!  How  conspicuous  his 
ability  and  skill  in  setting  forth  the  essential  facts  in 
such  bold  outline  as  to  be  clearly  distinguished  from 
any  complex  background  of  minor  details!  His  off- 
hand and  seemingly  careless  manner  of  portraying  a 
great  person  or  event  often  made  the  effect  more 
thrilling ;  and  his  hearer,  whether  a  regular  student  or 
an  occasional  visitor,  might  easily  forget  that  he  was 
in  a  class  room. 

His  public  addresses  commanded  exceptional  atten- 
tion. In  his  sermons  and  lectures  he  excelled  in 
constructive  thought,  in  broad  generalization,  in  his 
pointed  and  forceful  statements,  in  elegance  of  dic- 
tion, in  penetrating  insight.  He  was  a  recognized 
power  in  our  greatest  deliberative  assemblies,  a  pro- 
found logician,  a  strong  debater,  quick  to  perceive  and 
expose  fallacies,  and  a  master  in  his  grasp  of  the  vital 
issues  of  a  controversy. 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  57 

And  now  he  has  quietly  fallen  on  sleep  at  the  goodly 
age  of  three  score  years  and  ten.  His  departure  from 
us  in  the  calm  morning  hour,  after  his  usual  week  of 
toil  and  a  peaceful  evening  with  his  beloved  children, 
was  a  remarkable  euthanasia.  He  has  made  and  he 
leaves  upon  this  entire  community  and  upon  the  whole 
broad  Church  he  loved,  an  indelible  impression.  And 
he  will  live  on  in  the  affectionate  memory  of  number- 
less pupils,  now  scattered  over  the  wide  world,  and 
continue  to  speak  through  them  to  generations  fol- 
lowing. 

For  the  Faculty: 

M.  S.  Terry. 


THE  STUDENTS  OF  GARRETT  BIBLICAL 
INSTITUTE 

IT  was  with  a  sense  of  great  loss  that  the  news  of 
the  death  of  our  beloved  president,  Dr.  Little,  came 
to  the  students  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute:  the  loss 
of  an  example  of  true  Christian  manhood,  of  a  sympa- 
thetic friend  and  adviser,  of  a  scholar  and  teacher, 
who  first  of  all  taught  the  way  of  life. 

No  person  could  long  be  with  Dr.  Little  without 
feeling  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  God. 
He  made  the  Christ  live  anew  in  his  deeds  and  words. 
The  fragrance  of  his  life  has  brought  new  devotion  to 
many  a  heart.  When  he  spoke  of  Christ,  it  was  as  of 
one  whom  he  knew  through  a  rich  personal  experi- 
ence ;  the  Scriptures  burned  with  a  new  fervor  because 
they  were  animated  by  his  life.  He  made  one  feel  the 
greatness  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  a  desire  to  be 
a  part  in  its  coming  among  men. 

Only  when  all  things  are  revealed  will  we  know 
how  many  persons  have  been  helped  by  his  friendly 
and  Christian  sympathy.  No  one  knows  the  number 
of  disheartened  students  he  has  cheered  on  in  their 
work,  the  many  to  whom  the  proper  training  for  the 
work  of  the  Christian  ministry  would  have  been 
impossible  were  it  not  that  he  proved  himself  a 
friend.  But  we  have  all  known  and  felt  that  Dr. 
58 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  59 

Little  was  a  friend  truly  great  and  in  deep  sympathy 
with  us  who  are  preparing  for  the  work  of  the 
Master. 

As  a  teacher  we  have  never  felt  that  he  was 
desirous  of  leading  us  to  any  private  belief  or  doc- 
trine. The  glitter  of  the  new  or  the  antiquity  of  the 
old  were  not  elements  of  value  to  him.  His  great  test 
was  the  reality  in  fact  and  in  experience.  He  was 
devoted  to  the  truth  and  sought  to  instil  a  like 
devotion  in  the  minds  of  his  students.  And  all  truth, 
of  whatever  realm,  was  made  to  contribute  its  light, 
and  to  reveal  the  glory  of  the  One  who  declares  Him- 
self to  be  "the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life." 

With  the  host  of  friends,  with  the  Church  at 
large,  with  scholars  and  educators,  and  with  all  men 
who  feel  that  in  the  translation  of  Dr.  Little  they 
have  lost  an  eminent  contemporary  and  friend,  the 
student  body  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute  earnestly 
unites  in  expressing  its  sympathy  to  the  bereaved 
family. 


BOARD  OF  VISITORS 

It  was  with  a  keen  sense  of  irreparable  loss  that  we 
read  last  March  of  the  sudden  death  of  President 
Little,  for  while  many  men  exert  great  influence  for 
good,  few  there  are  whose  horizon  of  usefulness 
broadens  throughout  Christendom. 

Dr.  Little,  the  true  and  the  good,  the  scholar  and 
the  thinker,  the  counsellor  and  administrator,  the 
preacher  and  teacher,  was  one  of  those  rare  souls  in 
the  church  of  God.  He  was  not  only  the  president 
of  Garrett :  he  was  one  of  the  foremost  leaders  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  in  America. 

In  his  preaching,  moral  and  emotional  intensity 
filled  analytical  and  rhetorical  ability  with  power. 

As  a  teacher,  his  encyclopedic  mind  was  joined 
with  a  personality  alert  and  progressive,  and  above 
all  devoted  to  sincerity  and  truth.  His  scorn  of 
hypocrisy  and  sham  all  but  consumed  him,  and  made 
those  qualities  as  impossible  in  those  around  him  as 
gossamer  threads  in  furnace  flame. 

Representing  thirty  Conferences,  we  record  our 
high  appreciation  of  his  invaluable  services,  not  only 
to  our  own  church,  but  to  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord 
everywhere,  and  while  we  mourn  his  loss,  we  rejoice  in 
the  deathless  influence  for  righteousness  living  in  his 

P     '  Earl  W.  Holtz. 

W.  F.  Hovts. 
E.  C.  Dixon. 
60 


TEUSTEES  AND  FACULTY,  NORWEGIAN- 
DANISH  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

IN  a  joint  meeting  of  the  Faculty  and  the  Board 
of  Trustees  of  the  Norwegian-Danish  Theological 
Seminary  of  this  city  the  following  resolution  was 
adopted,  viz.: 

Whereas,  The  Reverend  Charles  Joseph  Litiile, 
Ph.  D.,  D.  D.,  LL.D.,  President  of  Garrett  Biblical 
Institute,  has  passed  from  his  grand  and  faithful 
work  in  the  Church  Militant  to  the  fellowship  of 
the  Church  Triumphant,  and 

Whereas,  We  recognized  in  him  a  man  of  unusual 
devotion,  profound  spirituality,  and  the  most  genial 
brotherliness,  because  of  which  his  translation  is  felt 
as  a  distinct  personal  bereavement;  and 

Whereas,  President  Little  has  shown  a  genuine 
interest  in  our  Norwegian-Danish  missionary  work 
generally  and  a  special  interest  in  our  theological 
seminary — not  only  on  account  of  his  residence  among 
us  as  a  great  savant  and  educator,  but  more  especially 
on  account  of  his  knowledge  of  our  language  and 
literature,  being  a  constant  reader  of  our  classics  and 
also  of  our  church  organ,  "Den  Kristelige  Talsmand" ; 
besides  having  a  thorough  understanding  of  our 
national  and  church  history,  which  enabled  him  with 
his  broad  Christian  sympathy  to  show  continually  in 
words  and  deeds  that  he  understood  the  peculiar 
difficulties  of  our  Foreign  Mission  and  appreciated 
61 


62  IN  MEMORIAM 

our  work  as  a  branch  of  the  great  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  which  he  loved  and  served  so  eminently  and 
loyally  up  to  the  very  last  day  of  his  earthly  life; 
therefore, 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  Faculty  and  School  Board 
of  the  Norwegian-Danish  Theological  Seminary,  as- 
sembled in  Evanston,  111.,  this  13th  day  of  March, 
1911,  do  sincerely  deplore  our  loss  and  record  our 
esteem  for  this  man  of  God  and  conspicuous  servant 
of  the  church. 

That  we  express  our  brotherly  Christian  sympathy 
with  the  bereaved  family  and  assure  them  of  our 
deep  and  lasting  affection,  not  only  for  their  own 
sake,  but  because  of  the  veneration  in  which  we  held 
their  honored  head. 

That  a  copy  of  this  resolution  be  preserved  in  the 
archives  of  this  seminary,  and  that  we  instruct  our 
secretary  to  forward  a  copy  of  the  same  to  the  family 
of  our  departed  friend,  brother  and  benefactor. 

For  the  Faculty  and  School  Board, 
Neis.  E.  Simonsen,  J.  0.  Hall, 

Chairman.  Secretary. 


THE  FACULTY,  COLLEGE  OF  LIBEEAL  ARTS, 
NORTHWESTERN  UNIVERSITY 

AT  the  regular  meeting  of  the  faculty  of  the  Col- 
lege of  Liberal  Arts,  Tuesday,  March  21,  on  motion 
of  Professor  Amos  W.  Patten,  the  following  resolu- 
tions on  the  passing  of  Dr.  Little  were  adopted  by 
unanimous  and  standing  vote : 

Whereas,  Charles  Joseph  Little,  D.  D.,  LL.D., 
S.  T.  D.,  President  of  Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  has 
passed  to  his  eternal  jest,  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  faculty  of  the  College  of 
Liberal  Arts  of  Northwestern  University,  do  hereby 
express  our  sense  of  the  profound  loss  which  we  have 
sustained  in  the  removal  from  among  us  of  this  dis- 
tinguished scholar  and  educator. 

As  preacher,  professor,  author,  historical  investi- 
gator, leader  in  theological  instruction;  as  a  far- 
seeing  student  of  literature  and  philosophy;  as  a 
thinker  of  wide  vision  and  deep  conviction;  as  a 
prominent  figure  in  the  councils  of  the  church,  he 
has  made  an  enduring  mark  upon  his  age. 

His  departure  takes  from  us  a  broad-minded 
citizen,  a  wise  counsellor,  a  loyal  friend  and  a  devoted 
servant  of  God. 

Resolved,  That  we  extend  to  the  faculty  of  Garrett 
Biblical  Institute  our  deepest  sympathy  in  the  sad 


64  IN  MEMOEIAM 

bereavement  which  has  come  to  them  in  the  sudden 
departure  of  President  Little. 

Resolved,  That  this  minute  be  placed  upon  our 
records  and  that  a  copy  thereof  be  transmitted  to  the 
bereaved  family. 


FIRST  ITALIAN  METHODIST  EPISCOPAL 
CHURCH,  CHICAGO 

WHEREAS,  it  has  pleased  Almighty  God  in  His 
infinite  wisdom  to  call  unto  Himself  His  faithful 
servant,  Professor  Charles  J.  Little;  and 

Whereas,  with  his  death,  Methodism  has  lost  one 
of  its  greatest  leaders  and  our  church  a  father ;  and 

Whereas,  during  his  life,  and  more  especially  in 
these  latter  years,  he  loved  and  admired  our  mother- 
country,  Italy,  expressing  this  love  and  admiration  in 
particularly  caring  for  and  advocating  the  cause  of 
our  struggling  congregation,  giving  it  the  aid,  indorse- 
ment and  encouragement  essential  to  its  reaching  the 
solid  basis  on  which  it  now  stands,  and  by  attracting 
to  us  through  his  powerful  personality  the  interest 
not  only  of  his  family  but  of  all  whom  he  knew ;  and 

Whereas,  Dr.  Little  graciously  held  the  presidency 
of  our  Board  of  Trustees,  giving  liberally  time  and 
advice  and  taking  upon  himself  even  financial  bur- 
dens ;  and 

Whereas,  still  fresh  in  our  hearts  is  the  memory 
of  his  devotion  to  us  and  to  this  cause ;  therefore 

We,  the  members  of  the  First  Italian  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  of  Chicago,  Illinois,  wishing  to 
perpetuate  this  memory  during  this  memorial  service, 

Resolve  that  the  expressions  of  our  deep  sympathy 


66  IN  MEMORIAM 

in  this  hour  of  sorrow  be  presented  by  our  pastor  to 
the  family  of  Dr.  Charles  J.  Little ; 

That  a  life-size  photograph  enlargement  of  Dr. 
Little  be  provided  and  placed  in  an  adequate  and 
central  position,  with  a  bronze  inscription  attached, 
in  the  side  chapel,  and  that  said  chapel  henceforth  be 
known  as  the  "Charles  Joseph  Little  Memorial 
Chapel." 

Signed    Piero  M.  Petacci. 
Alfonso  de  Salvio. 


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EXTENSION  SOCIETY 

THE  Chicago  Home  Missionary  and  Church  Exten- 
sion Society  desires  to  record  its  sense  of  loss  in  the 
death  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  J.  Little,  president  of 
Garrett  Biblical  Institute,  who  passed  away  after  a 
few  hours'  illness  on  Saturday  morning,  March  11, 
1911. 

Dr.  Little's  official  connection  with  the  work  of  the 
society  dates  from  1897,  when  he  appears  as  a  member 
of  the  Executive  Committee.  From  that  time  until 
his  death  he  was  deeply  and  intelligently  interested 
in  the  various  enterprises  founded  and  fostered  by 
the  Society.  His  enthusiasm  was  especially  drawn 
to  the  experiment  embodied  in  the  organization  of 
the  Northwest  Federation  and  the  movement  by  which 
a  beautiful  house  of  worship  was  secured  for  the 
Italian  colony. 

Dr.  Little  brought  to  the  councils  of  the  Society  an 
engaging  earnestness  and  an  inspiring  zeal  for  the 
spread  of  the  Kingdom.  His  fine  intellectual  gifts 
and  rich  and  varied  learning;  his  breadth  of  outlook 
and  spiritual  intensity;  his  eager  and  robust  faith 
and  ardent  apostleship  in  its  behalf;  his  passion  for 
righteousness  in  the  smallest  details  of  conduct  and 
his  instant  impatience  with  sham  and  unreality  of 
67 


68  IN  MEMOEIAM 

every  sort — all  contributed  to  a  personality  at  once 
forceful  and  compelling.  The  memory  of  his  noble 
and  urgent  life,  of  his  stainless  character,  and  of  his 
manifold  labors  of  love,  will  be  cherished  by  the 
Society  among  the  treasures  which  it  holds  most 
sacred,  to  be  recalled  always  with  deepest  reverence 
and  affection. 


THE  FACULTY,  McCORMICK  THEOLOGICAL 
SEMINARY 

THE  Faculty  of  McCormick  Theological  Seminary 
have  heard  with  deep  sorrow  of  the  death  of  President 
C.  J.  Little,  D.  D.,  LL.D.  We  extend  to  you  our 
heartfelt  sympathy  in  this  loss,  which  will  be  felt 
not  only  by  you  as  a  seminary  but  by  your  entire 
church  as  well. 

The  twenty  years  of  service  which  he  has  given  to 
you  has  impressed  us  all  with  the  strength  of  his 
personality  and  we  have  shared  with  you  in  deep 
regard  for  Dr.  Little  and  high  estimation  of  his 
abilities. 

In  social  and  institutional  relations  he  combined 
rare  geniality  with  a  spirit  of  friendliness,  fairness 
and  comity,  and  it  was  always  a  pleasure  to  meet 
him  in  those  gatherings  of  our  theological  faculties 
where  we  sought  to  develop  and  emphasize  our  com- 
mon brotherhood  and  unity  of  purpose. 

As  a  professor  in  a  sister  institution  we  admired 
him  for  his  administrative  capacity,  for  his  scholar- 
ship, his  breadth  of  vision,  the  clearness  of  his  intel- 
lect and  the  eloquence  of  his  words.  He  was  the 
vigorous  opponent  of  all  that  puts  shackles  on  men's 
consciences  or  lives,  a  Protestant  in  sentiment  and 
action. 

69 


70  IN  MEMORIAM 

And  now  in  sorrow  we  would  bring  this  tribute  to 
his  grave  and  this  token  of  sympathy  to  your  hearts. 
May  the  Gospel  of  the  Eesurrection  and  the  Life 
which  he  preached  be  your  consolation  in  this  hour, 
and  as  you  are  assured  that  with  his  own  eyes  he  now 
looks  upon  his  Bedeemer,  may  you  take  up  anew  with 
courage  and  with  faith  the  duties  and  the  trust 
which  the  great  Head  of  the  Church  has  given  into 
your  keeping. 


TEIBUTES 

Drew  Theological  Seminary,  Madison,  N.  J. 

His  wisdom  in  administration,  his  choice  scholar- 
ship, his  power  as  a  preacher,  his  consecrated  life, 
his  great  services  to  ministerial  education  have  left 
an  impress  that  cannot  be  effaced. 


The  Western  Christian  Advocate,  Cincinnati,  0. 

He  was  a  man  with  a  broad  vision  and  hundreds 
of  our  ministers  who  passed  through  his  classes  will 
look  to  him  with  gratitude  and  mourn  his  death  as  a 

deep  personal  loss.  

The  Christian  Advocate,  New  York. 

He  .  .  .  had  many  talents  and  also  a  strain  of 
genius.  The  amount  of  his  knowledge  was  marvelous 
.  his  accomplishments  were  unusual  in  their 
number  and  scope.  .  .  .  As  a  prose  writer  he 
excelled.  .  .  .  As  an  orator  he  exceeded  most 
public  speakers  in  reading  his  orations.  .  .  .  Held 
by  his  manuscript,  he,  by  its  contents,  held  silent  and 
intent  all  classes  of  hearers.  ...  In  his  classes  he 
was  absorbing  and  instructive.  .  .  .  He  was  pro- 
foundly religious  after  his  own  manner ;  and,  if  neces- 
sary, would  have  been  burned  to  death  rather  than 
recant  his  spiritual  vows.  His  religion  was  neither 
Pharisaical  nor  fanatical;  often  of  the  spirit  of  the 
hermit,  and  again  longing  for  society  and  brother- 
hood, he  was  in  all  things  himself. 
71 


72  IN  MEMORIAM 

The  Michigan  Christian  Advocate,  Detroit,  Mich. 

President  Little  was  one  of  the  few  really  great 
men  in  Methodism.  .  .  .  Though  somewhat 
reserved,  he  was  a  man  of  genial  personality  and  a 
loyal  and  faithful  servant  of  the  church. 


The  Pittsburg  Christian  Advocate,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

Dr.  Little  was  one  of  the  strong  men  of  the  church, 
a  real  prince  in  our  Israel,  and  a  veritable  pillar  of 
American  Methodism.  He  was  a  thorough  and  ripe 
scholar  and  a  writer  who  wielded  a  trenchant  pen. 
He  had  very  clear  insight,  intense  and  positive  con- 
victions and  yet  broad  and  sane  views.  He  was  a 
sage  counselor. 


The  Central  Christian  Advocate,  Kansas  City,  Mo. 

Dr.  Charles  J.  Little  was  an  upland  son.  There 
was  nothing  ordinary  in  his  structure.  He  was  in- 
tense; he  was  brilliant;  he  was  conscientious  to  the 
point  of  aloofness;  he  was  a  poet  in  the  structure  of 
his  thoughts;  he  was  universal  in  his  knowledge;  he 
vitalized  what  he  taught  until  it  was  all  alive,  vascu- 
lar, intense,  dramatic  and  picturesque.  He  was  a 
great  scholar.  He  was  a  great  preacher.  He  was  a 
prophet. 


The  Northwestern  Christian  Advocate,  Chicago. 

To  comprehensive  learning,  exact  scholarship,  and 
peerless  gifts  of  exposition,  Dr.  Little  added  in  his 
teaching  a  contagious  enthusiasm  which  begot  in  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  73 

dullest  new  and  unforgettable  desires  for  ampler 
knowledge  of  the  revelations  of  God  in  His  word  and 
in  human  history.  Nor  were  his  students  ever  allowed 
to  forget  that  the  distinguishing  badge  of  the  scholar 
is  his  sympathy  with  the  problems  of  human  life  and 
his  subordination  of  gifts  and  acquisitions  to  the 
supreme  obligation  of  human  helpfulness.  Dr.  Little 
was  himself  a  noble  illustration  of  this. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  Henry  W.  Warren. 

Dr.  Little  was  a  true  type  of  a  versatile  American 
Christian.  .  .  .  Notwithstanding  his  versatility 
he  was  thorough  in  all  his  work.  ...  He  has 
added  to  the  mental  and  spiritual  life  of  millions. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  Willard  F.  Mallalieu. 

He  had  many  traits  of  character  that  constituted 
the  highest  types  of  manhood,  brotherhood,  Christ- 
likeness.  He  was  brave,  transparently  pure,  honest, 
kindly,  considerate  of  others,  conscientious,  a  candid 
truth  teller,  a  lover  of  mankind,  a  loyal  Methodist, 
and  an  humble,  faithful  follower  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  Joseph  F.  Berry. 

He  was  strong,  clear,  independent  and  forceful  in 
his  leadership  in  any  body  of  men. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  William  A.  Quayle. 
He  was  master  of  a  strong,  prose  style,  had  penetra- 


74  IN  MEMOEIAM 

live  power  of  historical  criticism,  and  a  fine  gift  for 
character  analysis. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  David  H.  Moore. 

There  were  few  such  scholars  in  Methodism. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  John  H.  Vincent. 

His  long  and  wide  experience  as  a  man  among 
men,  as  a  preacher,  as  a  professor,  as  a  lecturer,  as 
a  genial  and  attractive  member  of  the  social  circle, 
as  a  traveler,  and  as  a  close  and  critical  observer, 
gave  him  a  world  not  only  to  live  in  but  to  com- 
mand at  will  and  to  command  for  the  delight  and 
profit  of  his  hearers  and  associates. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  John  M.  Walden. 

Our  church  is  richer  because  of  his  life  and  work 
and  will  long  be  indebted  to  him  for  the  real  impulse 
he  has  given  to  the  loyal  study  of  modest  but  mighty 
Methodist  leaders. 


The  Rev.  Bishop  Eugene  R.  Hendrix. 

Versatile,  devout,  courageous,  he  will  long  be 
remembered  as  a  master  of  assemblies,  honored  and 
loved  by  all  the  churches. 


The  Rev.  Professor  Henry  C.  Sheldon,  Boston  Uni- 
versity School  of  Theology. 
By  virtue  of  his  rare  combination  of  scholarship, 
literary  gifts,  administrative  talent  and  religious  en- 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  75 

thusiasm,  President  Little  was  a  man  of  marked 
distinction.  

The  Rev.  Professor  William  F.  Warren,  Boston  Uni- 
versity School  of  Theology. 
President  Little  reminded  me  of  Wilbur  Fisk  in 
New  England.    Nothing  higher  can  be  said. 


The  Rev.  Professor  Henry  A.  Buttz,  Drew  Theological 
Seminary. 
It  was  in  the  work  of  ministerial  education  .  .  . 
that  he  rendered  his  last  and  probably  his  greatest 
service.  He  brought  to  his  educational  task  an  equip- 
ment of  ability  and  training  rarely  equaled,  and  his 
influence  upon  the  students  will  abide. 


The  Rev.  Professor  D.  W.  C.  Huntington,  Nebraska 
Wesleyan  University. 
So  clear  and  clean  in  thought,  devout  in  spirit, 
loyal  to  the  truth  and  never  wanting  in  courage  which 
led  him  to  be  true  to  his  convictions. 


President  Herbert  Welch,  Ohio  Wesleyan  University. 
He  was,  perhaps,  the  ripest  scholar  of  our  church — 
a  man  of  prodigious  learning,  yet  master  of  his  knowl- 
edge ...  of  elegant  culture,  yet  of  practical 
force  ...  an  educator  and  statesman  of  rare 
quality.  

President  William  E.  Huntington,  Boston  University. 
President  Little  represented  the  best  type  of  Chris- 


76  IN  MEMORIAM 

tian  scholarship.  Of  wide  learning,  he  was  conse- 
crated to  the  work  of  a  religious  teacher.  Through 
his  books  he  sent  out  to  the  world  the  results  of  his 
best  thinking  by  gifted  powers  of  utterance. 


President  Eugene  A.  Noble,  Goucher  College. 

President  Little  was  a  man  of  penetration,  inde- 
pendence, frankness,  consistency  and  reverence.  His 
beliefs  were  grounded  in  righteousness  and  were  ex- 
pressed with  enthusiasm.  He  admired  men  of  worth 
and  honored  honest  effort. 


President  Harris  Franklin  Rail,  Iliff  School  of  The- 
ology. 
The  theologian  is  popularly  regarded  as  the  man 
of  the  closet  and  a  dweller  in  the  past.  President 
Little  was  more  than  either;  he  knew  and  loved  the 
Methodism  of  the  past,  but  he  saw  its  tasks  in  the 
present.  He  saw  the  true  Wesley  and  high  succes- 
sion in  the  spirit  of  huge  service  of  Christianity  and 
of  Methodism  in  our  modern  social  problems. 


President  Harry  Pratt  Judson,   the    University  of 
Chicago. 
All  Christian  churches  owe  his  name  reverence. 


The  Rev.  Professor  Andrew  C.  Zenos,  McCormich 
Theological  Seminary  (Presbyterian). 
He  was  a  man  of  charming  character,  of  great 
learning,  earnest  and  devoted  spirit. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  77 

Professor  George  B.  Foster,  the  University  of  Chicago. 
His  earnestness  and  seriousness  did  not  keep  him 
from  being  kind,  nor  his  sanity  from  being  young 
and  optimistic. 

Professor  Ira  M.  Price,  the  University  of  Chicago. 

President  Little  was  a  broad-minded,  positive, 
forceful  Christian  scholar,  a  warm-hearted,  sympa- 
thetic counselor  and  friend. 


Paul  Cams,  Editor  The  Open  Court. 

Faithful  to  the  traditions  of  his  church,  yet  open- 
minded  to  scientific  truth,  President  Little  was  a 
noble  type  of  the  modern  theologian  and  educator. 


The  Rev.  Professor   Graham  Taylor,    the    Chicago 
Commons. 
Alert  in  intellect,  devout  in  spirit  and  catholic  in 
fellowship,  Dr.  Little  served  his  Church  best  by  serv- 
ing the  Kingdom  most. 


Nolan  R.  Best,  Editor  The  Continent. 

I  always  admired  him  for  the  breadth  of  view  and 
catholicity  of  understanding  which  made  him  sympa- 
thetic with  both  the  progressive  and  conservative 
elements  of  Christian  thought. 

Mrs.  George  H.  Parkinson. 

Mav  not  the  hundreds  of  ministers'  wives  who  are 
Gamtt  women  have  a  word  spoken  for  them?    We 


78  IN  MEMORIAM 

were  conscious  of  his  sympathy,  of  his  belief  in  the 
influence  of  a  consecrated  parsonage  home;  and 
because  of  him  many  of  us  are  truer  and  stronger. 


President  George  Edward  Reed,  Dickinson  College. 
He  left  a  deep  and  abiding  impression  as  scholar, 
orator,  teacher,  preacher  and  man  of  affairs. 


President  Ozora  S.  Davis,  Chicago  Theological  Semi- 
nary. 
President  Little  was  one  of  God's  great  men  with 
the  gentle  spirit  of  a  little  child.  His  scholarship 
was  almost  inexhaustible,  yet  he  knew  how  to  take 
his  hearers  with  him  into  the  pleasant  paths  of 
learning  as  well  as  to  lift  them  to  the  heights. 


President  Aoram  W.  Harris,  Northwestern  Uni- 
versity. 
The  Methodist  Church  has  had  no  greater  scholar. 
To  an  exact  and  deep  knowledge  in  the  department 
of  learning  which  he  made  his  special  field  he  added 
a  wide  and  discriminating  knowledge  in  many  fields, 
particularly  those  fields  that  especially  deal  with  the 
humanities.  ...  In  public  address  he  had  gifts 
that  justly  claim  for  him  rank  with  the  great 
orators  of  the  Church.  In  his  private  relations,  as 
in  his  public  interests,  he  was  human  and  treasured 
the  regard  and  affection  of  his  friends. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  79 

The  Rev.  Professor  Milton  8.  Terry,  Garrett  Biblical 
Institute. 
Splendidly  equipped  ...  a  master  in  history, 
philosophy  and  logic,  a  preacher  and  teacher  of  tran- 
scendent power,  he  has  long  commanded  general 
admiration..    His  students  fairly  idolized  him. 


The  Rev.  Professor  Solon  C.  Bronson,  Garrett  Bib- 
lical Institute. 
One  needed  to  come  close  to  him  in  his  suffering, 
however,  to  discover  the  still,  rare  qualities  of  char- 
acter, his  patience,  his  kindliness,  his  faith. 

The  Rev.  Professor  Dor  emus  A.  Hayes,  Garrett  Bib- 
lical Institute. 
Our  president  was  a  genius  in  the  class  room.  He 
was  an  inexhaustible  fountain  of  information.  .  .  . 
He  made  the  impression  of  encyclopaedic  knowledge 
available  at  a  moment's  notice.  He  was  our  sage, 
our  oracle,  our  final  authority.  ...  He  was  a 
master  among  masters. 

The  Rev.  Professor  F.  C.  Eiselen,  Garrett  Biblical 
Institute. 
Wonderful  was  his  ability  to  hold  an  audience 
spellbound  by  the  knowledge  of  his  theme.  His  elo- 
quence and  perfect  mastery  of  English  were  a  rare 
combination  in  one  man.  He  was  an  inspiring 
teacher,  and  to  have  accomplished  what  he  did,  often 


80  IN  MEMORIAM 

handicapped  by  ill  health,  revealed  the  irresistible 
power  of  the  spirit  over  the  flesh. 

The  Rev.  Professor  William  J.  Davidson,  Garrett 
Biblical  Institute. 
As  a  preacher  he  combined  great  intellectual  ideals 
with  an  unique  evangelical  fervor  in  such  a  way  as 
to  make  him  in  his  prime  a  pulpit  orator  of  thrilling 
and  glorious  power.  He  had  a  marvelous  knowledge 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  both  the  English  and  the 
original  tongues  and  also  a  rare  sense  of  their  right 
pedagogical  and  homiletical  use. 

The  Methodist  Ministerial  Association,  Spokane, 
Washington. 
His  eminence  as  a  scholar,  theologian,  preacher, 
writer  and  teacher  made  him  universally  recognized; 
while  his  scholarly  ability  tempered  by  a  loving  Chris- 
tian spirit  endeared  him  to  all  students. 

Southern  California  Methodist  Ministers'  Associa- 
tion, Los  Angeles,  California. 
Our  theological  school  at  Evanston  and  the  larger 
learning  everywhere  is  bereaved  in  the  passing  of 
a  potent  leadership.  Methodist  ministers  literally  in 
thousands  at  home  and  abroad  have  felt  the  spell  of 
his  mastery.  The  highest  councils  of  the  Church 
have  often  followed  his  wisdom.  Civic  affairs,  phil- 
anthropic enterprise,  the  betterment  of  social  condi- 
tions and  the  gospel  evangel  in  all  the  earth  have 
lost  a  most  wise  and  loving  friend. 


PAPERS  AND  ADDRESSES 

BY 

CHARLES  J.  LITTLE 


METHODIST  PIONEERS  AND  THEIR  WORK* 

AMERICAN  life  is  a  distinct  historical  product, 
as  sharply  differentiated  from  English  and  European 
life  as  was  the  Hellenic  life  of  twenty-five  centuries 
ago  from  the  Mediterranean  and  Aryan  life  out  of 
which  it  emerged.  Now,  sharply  defined,  historical 
products  are  never  the  outcome  of  deliberately  con- 
scious human  energy*  On  the  contrary,  every  city, 
every  epoch,  every  nation,  is  the  result  of  individual 
impulses  and  intentions,  which  are  fused  into  a  great 
social  enterprise  by  forces  other  and  more  than 
human.  And  what  is  true  of  any  epoch  or  nation 
is  true  of  any  one  of  its  constitutive  elements,  whether 
political,  intellectual,  or  spiritual.  Methodism  as  an 
organization,  or  Methodism  as  a  living  energy  in 
American  life,  has  come  to  be  what  it  is,  not  because 
the  character  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  forecast 
by  the  Methodists  of  the  eighteenth,  and  all  their 
efforts  directed  by  some  master  human  hand  to  the 
realization  of  such  vivid  forecast,  but  because  the 
Methodists  of  the  eighteenth  century  wrought  in  the 
eighteenth  century  according  to  the  impulses  and 


*  A  paper  presented  to  the  Centennial  Methodist  Confer- 
ence at  Baltimore,  Md.,  December  13,  1884. 
83 


84  IN  MEMORIAM 

instincts  of  their  redeemed  natures,  according  to  their 
judgment  of  the  needs  of  the  hour,  leaving  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  take  care  of  itself,  or,  rather,  to  be 
taken  care  of  by  Him  who  is  from  everlasting  to  ever- 
lasting. Absorbed  as  they  were  in  the  value  of  the 
individual  soul,  their  imaginations  were  not  kindled 
by  any  dreams  of  ecclesiastical  empire;  pictures  of 
modern  Methodist  edifices,  or  of  modern  Methodist 
audiences,  could  have  yielded  them  no  inspiration. 
They  believed,  and  therefore  they  spoke;  they  had 
souls  to  take  care  of,  and  they  cared  for  them  by  the 
best  methods  which  their  intellects  could  devise. 
Leaving  to  God  the  business  of  opening  doors,  and 
accepting  for  themselves  the  humbler  business  of  en- 
tering such  doors  as  he  might  open,  enabled  the 
Methodist  pioneers,  as  it  enables  all  the  elect  of  God, 
to  do  a  work  of  whose  importance  and  magnitude  the 
furthest-sighted  of  them  all  had  only  faint  and  uncer- 
tain glimpses. 

When  Philip  Embury  and  Robert  Strawbridge  were 
thinking  and  praying  about  leaving  Ireland,  Captain 
Thomas  Webb,  his  right  arm  wounded,  his  right  eye 
gone,  his  great  commander  dead  upon  the  field  of 
glory,  was  returning  to  England  from  the  heights 
of  Abraham,  which  his  valor  had  helped  to  win. 
Quebec  was  taken  in  1759.  With  its  capture,  and  the 
destruction  of  Pontiac  a  few  years  later,  passed  away 
forever  the  French  dominion  beyond  the  Alleghany 
Mountains.  Frederick  County,  Maryland,  where 
Strawbridge  settled,  was  upon  the  frontier  when  he 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  85 

settled  at  Sam's  Creek.  Beyond  it,  westward,  were 
a  few  forts,  the  Indians,  and  the  wilderness.  Little 
did  he  dream,  when  he  erected  the  log  meeting-house 
in  which  his  little  Society  of  twelve  or  fifteen  might 
worship,  of  the  vast  flood  of  human  beings  which 
was  soon  to  pour  across  the  mountains  that  separated 
them  from  the  vast  tracts  which  Wolfe  and  his  army 
had  won  for  the  English  colonists.  Little  did  he 
dream,  when  he  sung  with  that  sweet  voice  of  his 
the  first  Methodist  hymns  to  his  few  neighbors,  of 
the  vast  throngs  which  would  re-echo  them,  in  future 
years,  from  the  yet  unpeopled  wilderness. 

Just  as  little  did  Philip  Embury  foresee,  as  he 
sailed  up  New  York  harbor  in  1760,  the  Brooklyn 
Bridge  swinging  aloft  above  the  activities,  the  char- 
ities, the  prayers,  the  crimes  of  two  millions  of 
human  beings,  for  the  New  York  of  his  day  had  only 
twenty  thousand  inhabitants. 

Quebec  fell  in  1759,  and  with  it  French  dominion 
in  the  West.  The  Stamp  Act  was  passed  in  1765; 
its  passage  determined  the  independence  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonies  in  America.  The  Methodist  Societies 
of  1766  were  to  be  cradled  amidst  the  excitements  of 
the  Revolution,  but  the  little  company  upon  the 
Maryland  frontier,  the  larger  company  which  listened 
to  Embury  in  the  rigging-loft  of  New  York,  even 
fiery  Captain  Webb,  with  his  "Whitefieldian  declama- 
tion," were  too  intent  upon  saving  their  neighbors' 
souls  to  be  busied  with  forecasts  of  coming  political 
changes.    Unconscious  of  the  future,  save  in  a  larger 


86  IN  MEMOEIAM 

sense,  these  three — Strawbridge,  moved  by  his  own 
fervor;  Embury,  aroused  from  his  torpor  by  the 
spiritual  energy  of  Barbara  Heck;  Webb,  following 
the  impulses  of  a  heart  whose  natural  fire  the  Holy 
Spirit  had  kindled  to  a  pure  white  glow — founded 
the  early  Societies  of  Maryland,  New  York  and  Penn- 
sylvania. Alike  only  in  their  devotion  to  their  Mas- 
ter and  their  readiness  for  sacrifice,  each  is  a  striking 
personality. 

Strawbridge  was  an  Irishman  from  County 
Leitrim,  poor,  adventurous,  courageous,  and  full  of 
zeal;  "a  stout,  heavy  man,  who  looked  as  if  he  was 
built  for  service;"  a  charming  companion,  with  his 
countrymen's  gift  of  persuasive  speech  and  a  touch 
of  their  unthrift.  But  his  neighbors  loved  him,  and 
not  only  hastened  to  his  hymns  and  sermons,  but 
farmed  his  land  during  his  absence,  that  others,  too, 
might  listen  to  his  sweet  voice.  A  licensed  local 
preacher  only,  he  traveled  through  Maryland,  was 
the  first  Methodist  preacher  to  gather  converts  in 
Virginia,  held  meetings  in  the  house  of  Martin 
Boehm,  in  Pennsylvania,  and  sung  the  hymns  of 
Wesley  in  Delaware  and  Jersey.  Asbury's  stern 
notice  of  his  death  is,  rightly  interpreted,  a  striking 
tribute  to  the  influence  and  power  of  Kobert  Straw- 
bridge.  Grimly  severe,  unlovely  in  its  harshness,  it 
shows  how  Strawbridge's  unyielding  opposition  had 
jarred  upon  the  great  commander.  Asbury  was  him- 
self capable  of  what,  to  an  imperiously  honest  nature, 
are   the  greatest  of  all   sacrifices — the  sacrifice   of 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  87 

honest  conviction,  of  cherished  habits,  of  action,  of 
slowly  matured  purposes,  when  required  in  the  inter- 
ests of  harmony.  Quietly  submitting  himself  to  so 
much  that  he  did  not  approve,  the  insubordination, 
even  of  those  whose  views  he  shared,  could  never 
attract  his  sympathy.  But  Strawbridge  was  right  in 
his  contention.  All  conjectures  of  what  might  have 
been  are  full  of  peril,  yet  one  is  fain  to  ask  whether 
Asbury's  own  lot,  and  the  lot  of  all  native  Methodist 
preachers  during  the  Revolution,  might  not  have 
been  much  easier  had  Strawbridge  prevailed  in  the 
sacramental  controversy,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  break 
with  Mr.  Wesley. 

Philip  Embury,  though,  like  Strawbridge,  born  in 
Ireland,  inherited  the  nature  of  his  German  parents, 
who  were  fugitives  from  the  Palatinate.  Born  in 
1730,  converted  in  his  twenty-second  year,  he  arrived 
in  New  York  in  1760,  a  skillful  carpenter,  who  could 
readily  find  work  in  the  growing  seaport.  He  was 
a  quiet,  unaggressive  man,  not  without  gifts,  fearful, 
earnest,  with  depths  of  perseverance  in  him,  when  his 
soul  began  to  flow  out  in  speech  and  work  under  the 
influence  of  his  passionate  and  energetic  cousin, 
Barbara  Heck.  Building  with  his  own  hand  the  pul- 
pit from  which  he  preached  in  old  John  Street 
Chapel,  within  two  years  of  its  consecration  in  1768 
he  saw  around  him  a  thousand  of  the  twenty  thou- 
sand people  who  then  resided  in  New  York.  From 
New  York  City  he  removed  to  Washington  County. 
Here  he  became  preacher  and  magistrate  among  his 


88  IN  MEMORIAM 

new  neighbors,  and  organized  a  Methodist  Society,  of 
which  he  was  the  leader  until  his  sudden  death  in 
1775.  Embury's  efforts  in  New  York,  originated  by 
Barbara  Heck,  were  stimulated,  quickened,  driven 
onward  to  marvelous  success  by  the  presence  of  Cap- 
tain Thomas  Webb.  This  soldier  of  King  George 
and  King  Jesus  enters  the  early  history  of  American 
Methodism  like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet.  From  the 
hour  that  he  announces  himself  to  the  half-frightened 
company  at  Embury's  house  as  "soldier  of  the  cross 
and  a  spiritual  son  of  John  Wesley,"  a  new  energy 
stirs  the  little  flock.  The  man,  described  by  John 
Adams  as  "one  of  the  most  eloquent  men  he  ever 
heard,"  was  no  mean  preacher.  Yet  in  the  prime  of 
life,  for  he  was  but  forty-two  years  of  age,  his  noble 
mien,  his  commanding  voice,  the  fire  of  his  one 
unshaded  eye  were  only  indications  of  a  soul  large, 
generous,  fearless,  indomitable.  He  gave  of  his  elo- 
quence, he  gave  of  his  money;  he  wrote  to  England, 
imploring  the  help  of  Mr.  Wesley,  under  whose 
preaching  he  had  been  converted,  and  by  whom  he 
had  been  licensed  to  preach;  he  traveled  to  Philadel- 
phia, and  begged  for  money  to  eke  out  his  own  liberal 
donation.  He  sold  religious  books,  and  gave  the 
profit  for  the  debt  of  the  Church ;  preaching  wherever 
he  went.  He  passed  through  New  Jersey.  He  was 
the  founder  of  Methodism  in  Philadelphia,  and  gave 
of  his  money  to  help  buy  St.  George's  Church.  He 
established  a  Society  in  Long  Island,  and  preached 
in  Delaware  as  early  as  1769.    At  a  later  period  he 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  89 

was  in  Baltimore.  Upon  his  return  from  England,  in 
1773,  he  brought  with  him  Shadford  and  Eankin, 
as  missionaries,  the  latter  to  superintend  the  Societies 
in  America.  But  before  this  Pillmoor  and  Boardman, 
Williams,  Wright,  and  Asbury  had  already  come  over 
in  response  to  his  urgent  appeals  for  help.  The  Revo- 
lutionary troubles  breaking  out,  he  returned  to  Eng- 
land, where  he  continued  to  preach  with  power  until 
his  death,  in  1796. 

How  sharply  contrasted  are  these  three  men !  The 
impetuous,  but  sweet-voiced  Strawbridge;  the  diffi- 
dent, tearful  Embury;  the  fiery,  energetic,  strong- 
voiced,  large-hearted  Webb !  They  may  be  called  the 
pioneer  founders  of  American  Methodism.  They 
came  to  America,  not  as  missionaries,  but  two  of 
them  to  seek  a  living,  and  a  third  in  the  service  of 
his  king.  Their  religious  activity  was  the  necessary 
outcome  of  their  religious  experience  and  the  spiritual 
destitution  of  their  neighbors.  Untrained,  though 
not  illiterate,  they  demonstrated  once  more  the  con- 
tagious character  of  earnest  conviction,  the  diffusive 
nature  of  living  faith.  Seizing  upon  the  truths  which 
were  livable,  they  preached  them  in  the  light  of  their 
own  experience.  Their  speech  was  what  spiritual 
speech  always  should  be,  the  mere  overflow  of  a  well 
of  living  water  which  was  in  them  to  everlasting  life. 

Let  me  next  speak  of  the  Wesleyan  missionaries. 
Richard  Boardman  and  Joseph  Pillmoor  were  sent 
from  England  in  1769 ;  Richard  Wright  and  Francis 
Asbury  in  1771.    Thomas  Rankin  and  George  Shad- 


90  IN  MEMOKIAM 

ford  came  over  with  Captain  Webb  in  1773;  Robert 
Williams  and  John  King  were  not  sent  over,  but  came 
of  their  own  accord,  both  of  them  in  1769.  Williams 
was  an  Irishman ;  Rankin  was  a  Scotchman ;  the  others 
were  English.  They  were  all  young  men — Pillmoor, 
the  oldest,  being  thirty-five ;  Asbury,  the  youngest,  but 
twenty-six.  Pillmoor  had  been  educated  at  Kings- 
wood  school;  the  others,  King  excepted,  had  no  such 
training.  Williams  was  madly  in  earnest;  King  was 
blunt,  simple,  courageous;  Boardman  was  "pious, 
good-natured,  sensible,  greatly  beloved  by  all  who 
knew  him;"  Pillmoor  was  Yorkshire-built  in  body 
and  character,  intrepid,  eloquent,  full  of  unction  and 
of  power;  Rankin  austerely  earnest,  untiring  in  his 
devotion  to  his  Master,  but  without  unusual  gifts  of 
mind  or  character. 

Shadford  was  serious,  pathetic,  full  of  Scripture 
and  the  Holy  Ghost.  Pillmoor  became  in  latter  years 
rector  of  St.  Paul's  Church,  Philadelphia,  where  he 
died  in  1825.  Williams,  King,  and  Asbury  died  in 
America,  as  Methodist  preachers.  Boardman,  Wright, 
Rankin,  and  Shadford  left  America  when  the  troubles 
of  the  American  Revolution  thickened  about  them, 
and  never  returned,  though  Shadford,  who  was  the 
last  to  leave,  parted  from  Asbury  in  tears,  and  was 
long  remembered  by  the  older  American  Methodists. 

The  position  of  an  English  Wesleyan  in  America, 
from  1770  to  1784,  was  one  of  peculiar  embarrass- 
ment and  peril.  Loyal  to  his  king,  he  was  still  more 
loyal  to  Mr.  Wesley ;  and  when  the  latter  pronounced 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  91 

disloyalty  a  sin,  his  American  missionaries  were  in 
sore  straits  indeed.  Asbury,  whose  reticence  was 
sometimes  carried  to  the  verge  of  unwisdom,  secretly 
sympathized  with  the  colonists,  but  held  his  peace 
and  declined  to  take  the  Maryland  oath. 

Nothing  but  the  amazing  fortitude  and  dauntless 
courage  of  the  native  preachers  saved  American  Meth- 
odism in  this  trying  hour.  Held  accountable  for  Mr. 
Wesley's  opinion,  and  for  the  conduct  of  any  who 
might  claim  to  be  Methodist  preachers,  to  be  a 
Methodist  was  to  excite  suspicion  and  provoke  perse- 
cution. Garrettson  nearly  killed,  Hartly  whipped  and 
imprisoned,  Caleb  Peddicord  beaten  and  injured  for 
life,  Forrest  and  Wren  committed  to  jail — neither 
stripes  nor  bonds  could  reach  the  souls  of  these 
intrepid  men.  They  were  not  of  their  time,  because 
they  were  above  their  time.  If  their  passion  for  inde- 
pendence was  less  vehement  than  that  of  others,  it 
was  because  they  were  anxious  to  see  men  freed  from 
the  bondage  of  a  tyrant  more  terrible  than  King 
George  or  Parliament — to  break  the  fetters  of  a 
slavery  of  which  all  political  slavery  is  but  a 
consequence. 

Aflbury  was  forced  to  seek  the  shelter  of  Judge 
White's,  in  Delaware;  and  not  until  John  Dickinson 
gave  him  a  letter  of  commendation  to  the  governor  of 
Maryland  did  he  resume  his  work  within  the  borders. 
Upon  the  coming  of  Coke  and  Whatcoat  in  1784,  he 
alone  remained  of  those  who  had  come  from  England ; 


92  IN  MEMORIAM 

he,  when  the  storm  subsided,  was  here  to  hold  the 
faithful  band  together. 

So  much  will  be  said  of  Asbury  during  these  sit- 
tings that  I  am  tempted  to  utter  no  word  of  this 
extraordinary  man.  Yet  who  can  pass  his  form  in 
silence?  He  had  a  robust  figure,  a  face  of  blended 
sweetness  and  severity,  an  eye  that  saw  far  more  than 
it  revealed,  a  voice  steadied  by  an  iron  will,  but  tremu- 
lous with  feelings  that  sometimes  shook  his  soul  as  a 
reed  is  shaken  by  the  wind.  He  had  none  of  Williams' 
wild  earnestness;  he  was  without  the  charm  of 
Strawbridge  or  the  gentle  harmlessness  of  Eichard 
Whatcoat.  He  had  not  the  thorough  humanness  of 
Jesse  Lee,  nor  the  mystical  tenderness  and  strength 
of  Freeborn  Garrettson. 

"Thy  soul  was  like  a  star,  and  dwelt  apart; 

Thou  hadst  a  voice  whose  sound  was  like  the  sea ; 
Pure  as  the  naked  heavens,  majestic,  free, 
So  didst  thou  travel  on  life's  common  way 
In  cheerful  godliness,  and  yet  thy  heart 
The  lowliest  duties  on  herself  did  lay." 

He  had  refused  to  live  in  cities,  and  by  his  cease- 
less movements  kept  alive  the  arterial  system  of  early 
Methodism.  How  different  were  the  men  who  fell 
into  each  other's  arms  at  Barrett's  Chapel  on  the  14th 
of  November,  1784 — Thomas  Coke,  the  only  child  of 
a  wealthy  house,  and  Francis  Asbury,  the  only  son 
of  an  English  gardener!     The  one  an  Oxford  grad- 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  93 

uate;  the  other  the  self-taught  scholar  of  a  frontier 
world.  Coke,  impulsive,  fluent,  rhetorical;  Asbury, 
reticent,  pithy,  of  few  words,  but  mighty  in  speech 
when  stirred  by  a  great  theme,  a  great  occasion,  or 
the  inrushings  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Coke's  mind  was 
as  mobile  as  his  character  was  stable.  Asbury^s  con- 
clusions matured  of  themselves,  and,  once  formed, 
were  as  steadfast  as  his  love  for  Christ.  Coke  could 
never  separate  himself  wholly  from  England;  Asbury 
could  never  separate  himself  from  America.  Coke 
crossed  the  Atlantic  eighteen  times;  Asbury  never 
crossed  it  but  once,  not  even  to  see  his  aged  mother, 
for  whose  comfort  he  would  have  sold  his  last  shirt 
and  parted  with  his  last  dollar.  Coke  founded  mis- 
sions in  the  West  Indies,  in  Africa,  in  Asia,  in  Eng- 
land, in  Wales,  in  Ireland ;  Asbury  took  one  continent 
for  his  own,  and  left  the  impress  of  his  colossal  nature 
upon  every  community  within  its  borders.  Coke  was 
rich,  and  gave  generously  of  his  abundance ;  out  of  his 
poverty  Asbury  supported  his  aged  parents,  smoothed 
the  declining  years  of  the  widow  of  John  Dickins, 
helped  the  poor  encountered  on  his  ceaseless  journeys, 
and  at  last  gave  to  the  Church  the  legacies  intended 
for  his  comfort  by  loving  friends.  Coke  was  twice 
married ;  Asbury  refused  to  bind  a  woman*  to  his  life 
of  sacrifice,  and  the  man  whom  little  children  ran 
to  kiss  and  hug  was  buried  in  a  childless  grave.    Both 


•"And  because,' '  he  writes  to  his  mother,  "of  what 
happened  to  me  when  I  was  in  England."  I  would  give 
much  to  know  what  it  was. 


94  IN  MEMOBIAM 

were  loved;  both  were  at  times  misunderstood;  both 
were  sharply  dealt  with  by  some  of  their  dearest 
friends;  but  Asbury  was  not  only  opposed  and 
rebuked,  he  was  vilified  and  traduced.  Neither 
shrank  from  danger  or  from  hardships ;  but  Asbury's 
life  was  continuous  hardship,  until  at  last  rest  itself 
could  yield  him  no  repose.  A  sort  of  spiritual 
Cromwell,  compelling  obedience  at  every  cost  to  him- 
self as  well  as  others,  Asbury  could  have  broken  his 
mother's  heart  to  serve  the  cause  for  which  he  died 
daily.  Coke  lies  buried  beneath  the  waves  he  crossed 
so  often;  but  around  the  tomb  of  Asbury  beat  con- 
tinually the  surges  of  an  ever-increasing  human  life 
whose  endless  agitations  shall  feel,  until  the  end  of 
time,  the  shapings  of  his  invisible,  immortal  hand. 
Of  Whatcoat,  of  Vasey,  I  will  not  speak;  a  few 
words  only  of  John  Dickins,  the  first  book  agent,  and 
the  projector  of  the  first  Methodist  college.  To  Robert 
Williams  is  due  the  credit  of  printing  the  first 
Methodist  books;  but  Mr.  Wesley  was  unwilling  that 
any  books  of  his  should  be  sold  for  private  gains, 
and  Williams'  enterprise  was  brought  to  a  speedy 
end.  Dickins,  at  great  financial  sacrifice,  managed 
the  book-room,  which  was  established  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1789,  with  skill  and  success,  and  died  there  of 
yellow  fever  in  1798.  English  born,  an  Eton  scholar, 
he  came  early  to  America,  and  joined  the  itinerants 
in  1777.  When  the  fever  came  to  Philadelphia,  he 
wrote  to  Asbury,  "From  the  jaws  of  death,"  stating 
his  determination  not  to  flee  the  city. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  95 

"For  piety,  probity,  profitable  preaching,  holy  liv- 
ing, Christian  education  for  his  children,  secret  closet 
prayer,"  writes  Bishop  Asbury,  "I  doubt  whether  his 
superior  is  to  be  found  either  in  Europe  or  America." 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  the  native  preachers,  the 
men  who  were  born  and  began  their  itinerant  life 
in  America.  These  men  defy  classification;  again 
and  again  I  have  tried  to  reduce  them  to  groups,  and 
failed  utterly.  And  herein  lies  one  glory  of  the  early 
American  pioneers — they  were  individual  almost  to 
uniqueness.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  fact  that 
they  were  the  first  fruits  of  a  new  country.  The 
European  in  America  who  survived  the  desperate 
struggle  for  existence  into  which  he  had  ventured  was 
in  nearly  every  case  a  man  of  hardy  frame  and  robust 
nature.  His  children,  surrounded  by  circumstances 
so  unlike  those  of  the  Old  World,  developed  character- 
istics rarely  to  be  met  with  among  the  children  of 
long-settled  countries. 

The  inner  nature,  untrammeled  by  the  pressure  of 
convention,  had  free  course  to  follow  its  native  ten- 
dencies, whether  good  or  bad.  When,  therefore,  the 
light  of  God  fell  upon  the  souls  of  these  Americans,  it 
flashed  back  upon  the  faces  of  their  neighbors  an  ever 
fresh  but  always  radiant  surprise. 

How  different  is  William  Watters,  the  first  native 
American  itinerant,  from  Benjamin  Abbott,  whom 
Asbury  looked  upon  as  an  itinerant  miracle!  How 
striking  the  difference  between  the  corpse-like  face 


96  IN  MEMORIAM 

of  John  Tunnell,  through  which  gleamed,  when 
preaching,  the  coming  of  the  splendors  of  another 
world,  and  the  manly  features  of  Jesse  Lee,  radiant 
with  health  and  exuberant  physical  energy !  Who  can 
listen,  with  Thomas  Ware,  to  the  song  of  Caleb 
Peddicord, 

"I  can  not,  I  can  not  forbear 

These  passionate  longings  for  home ; 
0  when  shall  my  spirit  be  there? 
0  when  will  the  messenger  come?" 

without  a  heavenly  homesickness  that  brings  tears  to 
his  eyes  and  dissolves  for  the  time  all  charms  of 
earthly  things? 

How  different  are  Garrettson's  steel-like  courage, 
his  invincible  gentleness,  his  almost  open  visions  of 
God's  will,  from  the  rough  soldier  energy  and  the 
soldier  speech  of  Joseph  Everett,  over  which  flowed  the 
transfiguring  beauty  of  a  quenchless  love  for  souls. 
Or,  contrast  the  concentrated  intensity  of  Eussel  Bige- 
low,  which,  like  electric  fire,  consumed  into  thin  vapor 
all  material  hindrances  that  impeded  the  passage  of 
his  soul  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his  listeners,  with 
the  many-sided  power  of  William  Beauchamp,*  editor, 
lawyer,  mechanic,  statesman,  preacher,  almost  bishop. 
Nay,  even  the  comet  of  the  itinerant  system,  the  man 


*  I  am  indebted  to  Rev.  Aaron  Wood,  of  Indiana,  who 
married  a  daughter  of  William  Beauchamp,  for  the  assur- 
ance that  the  family  pronounced  the  name  Beecham. 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  97 

who  was  never  exactly  in  and  never  entirely  out, 
Lorenzo  Dow,  and  the  lost  star  which  went  out  in 
blackness  of  darkness,  whom  I  will  not  name,  were 
men  of  unique  and  powerful  character. 

The  Methodist  pioneers  were  itinerants  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  term.  They  were  not  confined  to  the 
state  lines  or  narrow  conference  boundaries.  Modern 
Methodism  is  a  group  of  united  ganglia,  through 
which  there  is  no  such  continuous  circulation  as  made 
the  vascular  system  of  early  Methodism  a  thing  of 
wonder  and  of  power.  Appointments  were  for  large 
tracts  and  for  small  periods — a  pioneer  might,  in 
three  years,  have  preached  in  twice  as  many  states. 
Watters  preached  in  Virginia,  in  Maryland,  his  native 
state,  and  in  New  Jersey.  Philip  Gatch,  also  a  Mary- 
lander,  preached  in  Maryland,  Delaware,  Virginia, 
New  Jersey,  and  Ohio,  where,  Judge  McLean  says, 
he  laid  the  foundation  of  Methodism  in  the  West. 
Garrettson  traveled  through  Maryland,  his  native 
state,  through  Virginia,  through  Nova  Scotia,  New 
England,  and  New  York.  Moriarty  was  in  Virginia, 
Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  and  Connecti- 
cut. Jesse  Lee  took  all  New  England  for  his  parish, 
which  included  the  then  unbroken  forests  of  the 
province  of  Maine,  besides  traveling  with  Asbury 
throughout  the  Southern  states.  Hope  Hull,  another 
son  of  Maryland,  went  to  South  Carolina  in  1786,  to 
Virginia  in  1787  to  Georgia  in  1788,  to  Connecticut 
in  1792,  and  back  to  Georgia  in  1793.  Thomas  Ware, 
who  was  born  in  New  Jersey,  traveled  through  his 


98  IN  MEMORIAM 

native  state;  thence  to  Delaware;  was  afterwards  on 
Long  Island,  and  in  1817  volunteered  to  go  with 
Tunnell  to  what  is  now  east  Tennessee.  Valentine 
Cook,  who,  though  not  a  native,  began  his  itinerant 
life  in  Maryland,  preached  in  eastern  and  western 
Pennsylvania,  in  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  Beauchamp 
began  to  preach  between  the  south  branches  of  the 
Potomac,  was  stationed  at  Boston,  edited  the  Christian 
Monitor,  the  first  Methodist  newspaper,  at  Chill i- 
cothe,  Ohio,  founded  Mt.  Carmel,  111.,  was  stationed 
afterwards  at  St.  Louis,  and  died  while  presiding 
elder  in  Indiana. 

The  American  pioneers  were,  in  the  language  of 
Freeborn  Garrettson,  thrust  out  into  the  ministry, 
thrust  out  by  inner  compulsion  and  the  insistence 
of  the  people.  Doubtless  there  were  weaker  spirits 
who  were  swept  into  the  work  by  transient  excite- 
ment; but  these  soon  fell  back  before  the  difficulties 
which  confronted  and  attacked  them;  for  the  diffi- 
culties of  this  early  work  were  active  as  well  as  passive. 
I  can  find  but  few  of  whom  I  am  not  persuaded  they 
set  out  deliberately  to  have  a  hard  time. 

Their  difficulties  were  both  physical  and  moral.  The 
eastern  shore  of  Maryland  is  to  this  day  overhung 
with  malaria;  but  in  those  days  such  was  the  condi- 
tion of  much  of  the  country  through  which  they  were 
compelled  to  travel.  Good  roads  in  America  were 
rare,  rivers  were  plenty,  fords  were  few;  of  bridges 
there  were  hardly  any.  Coke  was  nearly  drowned; 
but  nearly  every  itinerant  could  tell  his  story  of 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  99 

floods  and  swamps  and  nights  in  the  forest,  where 
God  gave  his  beloved  sleep  in  spite  of  screaming 
wild-cats  and  howling  wolves.  The  cabins  where  they 
could  lodge  were  few,  some  of  them  with  the  latch- 
string  pulled  in,  some  of  them  the  resorts  of  horse- 
thieves  and  desperadoes.  Beyond  the  Alleghanies  the 
Indian  prowled  with  wolf-like  ferocity,  sparing 
neither  sex  nor  age.  The  rude  hospitality  of  the 
settler  was  given  by  a  warm  heart,  but  often  with 
dirty  hands.  The  rough  blanket  which  was  laid  over 
the  itinerant  sleeper  was  sometimes  biting  with  ver- 
min or  the  worst  forms  of  cutaneous  disease.  Often 
he  was  hungry,  sometimes  asking  a  blessing  upon  a 
crust  of  bread,  sometimes  days  without  so  much  as 
that.  Asbury's  meager  pittance  of  sixty-four  dollars 
a  year,  one  cent  a  mile  for  six  thousand  miles,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  preaching,  was  a  fair  sample  of  the 
preacher's  pay.  Bigelow,  of  whom  I  can  hardly  write 
without  the  desire  to  throw  myself  at  his  feet,  went 
clothed  like  a  beggar.  McKendree  preached  the  ser- 
mon that  made  him  bishop  in  coarse  garments  of 
western  homespun.  Roberts  came  to  Baltimore  in 
clothes  upon  whose  mendings  his  loving  wife  had 
well-nigh  sewed  away  her  eyes. 

But  the  moral  difficulties  which  confronted,  or,  as  I 
said,  attacked  them,  were  greater  than  the  physical. 
The  early  Methodist  preachers  in  the  Middle  and 
Southern  States  were  supposed  to  be  Tories,  and  were 
known  to  be  against  slavery.  Now,  while  the  loyalists 
were  far  more  numerous  than  the  readers  of  Bancroft 


100  IN  MEMORIAM 

ever  dream,  the  patriots  were  suspicious,  aggressive, 
and  violent  in  their  determinations.  Martin  Rodda, 
who  had  come  over  as  a  missionary  from  England 
after  the  coming  of  Shadford,  managed  by  his  dis- 
tribution of  royal  proclamations  to  compromise  the 
whole  company  of  itinerants.  Moreover,  not  a  few 
of  the  preachers  were,  like  Garrettson,  opposed  to 
war  upon  principle,  and  Asbury  deemed  it  wisest  to 
be  silent.  They  could  not  hope  to  escape  the  fury 
of  mobs,  and  they  did  not.  In  the  South,  although 
the  anti-slavery  feeling  existed  at  that  time,  more  or 
less,  in  every  community,  outspoken  utterances  upon 
the  subject  required  no  little  courage.  But  greater 
than  all  this  was  the  opposition  to  the  Methodist 
preacher  which  grew  out  of  his  faithful  plainness 
and  unconquerable  earnestness  of  speech,  and  out  of 
the  alarms  which  in  early  days  attended  upon  his 
ministry. 

When  men  and  women  fell  like  corpses  about  Ben- 
jamin Abbott,  he  himself  was  seized  with  terror,  and 
feared  it  was  the  devil's  work.  "I  have  no  call  from 
God  to  go  about  killing  people,"  said  the  clear-headed, 
great-hearted  man.  But  I  know  of  nothing  in  Meth- 
odist annals  more  like  a  flash  of  inspiration  than 
Abbott's  speech  to  the  terrified  Presbyterian :  "Wait 
till  they  come  to ;  if  they  praise  God,  we'll  know  then 
it's  not  the  devil's  work."  A  flash  of  the  same  perfect 
intelligence  which  declared  that  none  cast  out  devils  by 
Beelzebub,  the  prince  of  devils.  In  the  days  of 
Whitefield,  of  Tennent,  and  of  Davenport,  as  early 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  101 

as  1743,  Charles  Chauncey  had,  in  his  "Seasonable 
Thoughts,"  attacked  the  revivalists  of  New  England, 
because  their  preaching  was  attended  by  similar  man- 
ifestations. Yet  our  early  itinerants  found  every- 
where indelible  traces  of  Whitefield's  power  upon  the 
souls  of  his  hearers.  Jarrett,  that  godly  minded  Vir- 
ginia rector,  to  whom  the  pioneers  could  always  look 
for  help  and  counsel,  notes  the  excitement  which 
attended  the  preaching  of  the  fathers.  Dr.  Hinde 
treated  his  wife  as  though  she  were  attacked  with 
disease  when  she  became  a  Methodist,  and,  as  she 
afterwards  told  with  tears  of  laughter,  clapped  a  huge 
blister  upon  her  side,  little  thinking  how  soon  he 
himself  would  be  prostrated  by  the  same  amazing 
power.  Yet,  in  spite  of  prejudice,  in  spite  of  violence 
born  of  hatred  and  fear,  in  spite  of,  or  rather  because 
of,  plainness  of  speech,  of  purity  of  life,  of  simplicity 
of  utterance  and  simplicity  of  dress  the  preaching  of 
the  pioneers  was  everywhere  with  power  and  success. 
In  New  England,  Lee  met  with  peculiar  difficulties ; 
for  the  people  of  New  England  were  reticent  in 
private  and  disputatious  in  public,  inhospitable  until 
completely  conquered,  almost  invincible  in  their  intel- 
lectual prejudice  and  their  spiritual  pride.  That  he 
was  strong  enough  to  penetrate  their  steel-clad 
natures  is  the  one  abiding  proof  of  his  extraordinary 
character.  Jesse  Lee  was  the  first  of  a  type  of  Meth- 
odist preachers  which  it  is  to  be  hoped  will  never 
disappear.  Human  to  the  red-ripe  heart  of  him,  fear- 
ing no  man,  daunted  by  no  obstacle,  equal  to  any 


102  IN  MEMORIAM 

crisis,  he  is  too  honest  to  affect  a  dignity  which  would 
be  only  affectation,  and  his  humor  has  a  flavor  which 
the  grim  sarcasm  of  Asbury  never  possesses. 

Lee  would  never  have  pilloried,  as  our  "white 
brother,"  the  young  preacher,  who  was  holding  a  sac- 
ramental love-feast  in  the  parlor,  while  he  himself 
was  praying  with  the  negroes  downstairs.  Asbury, 
on  the  other  hand,  could  never  have  preached  Lee's 
sermons  upon  the  Connecticut  tithes,  nor  suffered  to 
escape  his  lips  the  retorts  for  which  Lee  became  so 
famous.  But  a  more  earnest  man  than  Jesse  Lee  has 
never  entered  a  Methodist  chapel  nor  sung  a  Methodist 
hymn.  Natures  like  his  are  easily  misunderstood. 
Their  kindly  humor  is  often  mistaken  by  smaller  men 
for  a  lack  of  serious  depth.  Broad  and  deep  as  the 
sea,  by  a  strange  inversion,  they  are  remembered  for 
the  white  caps  that  crest  their  billows  or  the  phos- 
phorescent gleam  upon  their  surface,  rather  than  for 
the  Neptunic  energy  which  is  the  core  and  center  of 
their  being.  Himself  a  spiritual  son  of  the  first 
American  itinerant,  Eobert  Williams,  the  great  com- 
pany of  his  spiritual  descendants  will  make  the  hum- 
ble Irish  preacher,  over  whom  Wesley  shook  his  ques- 
tioning head,  a  familiar  name  to  distant  generations. 
A  convert  of  the  man  who  sold  the  first  Methodist 
books  in  America,  the  first  "History  of  American 
Methodism,"  flowed  from  his  honest  pen.  A  Vir- 
ginian by  birth,  the  apostle  of  New  England  Meth- 
odism, he  died  at  Hillsborough,  Maryland,  1816,  a 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  103 

triumphant  death,  and  was  buried  here  at  Baltimore. 
No  children  followed  him  to  the  grave;  for  he,  like 
Asbury,  refused  to  bind  a  woman  to  his  life  of  toil; 
but  at  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb  the  childless 
hero  shall  rejoice  in  the  thronging  sons  and  daughters 
that  hail  him  father  in  the  Lord. 

In  the  West  and  South  the  difficulties  were  even 
greater  than  in  the  East.  Men  on  the  frontiers  were 
strong  and  sometimes  wild ;  their  spiritual  conquerors 
had  no  easy  task.  But  men  like  Ware,  McKendree, 
like  Shinn  and  Robert  and  Cook;  men  like  Tucker, 
who,  praying  and  fighting  with  Indians,  fell  dead 
amidst  the  boat-load  of  his  kindred,  whom  he  had 
saved  by  his  courage;  men  like  Ogden,  Beauchamp, 
and  Bigelow,  were  equal  to  this  amazing  work.  The 
South  was  manned  by  soldiers  like  George  and  Bruce, 
Hitt,  Lee,  Smith,  Reed,  Sargent,  and  the  extraor- 
dinary George  Dougharty.  Let  me  speak  a  moment 
of  Beauchamp  and  of  Dougharty. 

Beauchamp,  the  son  of  a  Methodist  preacher  of 
Huguenot  extraction,  was  born  in  Kent  County,  Dela- 
ware, in  1772.  A  school  teacher  at  eighteen,  a  Meth- 
odist preacher  at  nineteen,  he  was  a  scholar  all  his 
life.  After  preaching  with  great  success  in  the  East, 
he  located,  because  of  failing  health,  in  1801.  In  1815 
we  find  him  at  Chillicothe,  where  he  edited  the 
Western  Christian  Monitor,  and  where  he  produced 
a  marked  impression  upon  all  the  region  round  about. 
In  1817  he  started  to  found  a  colony  in  Illinois.  With 


104  IN  MEMOKIAM 

his  family  and  his  assistants  he  moved  in  a  boat 
down  the  Scioto  and  Ohio,  and  up  the  Wabash  River. 
The  flowing  water  echoed  to  the  sound  of  prayer  and 
song  as  the  little  colony  moved  on.  Arrived  at 
Mt.  Carmel,  Beauchamp  became  preacher,  doctor,  sur- 
veyor, teacher,  and  lawmaker  for  the  little  town. 
Broken  in  health,  he  retired  to  his  farm  to  come  forth 
once  more  into  the  itinerant  ranks,  in  which  he  died 
in  1824.  Eloquent  as  Francis  Hodgson  was  eloquent, 
with  logic  all  aflame,  with  thought  at  white  heat,  he 
thrilled  the  souls  of  those  who  heard  him  into  sym- 
pathy with  the  movements  of  his  own  luminous  mind, 
of  his  own  uplifted  and  expanded  soul.  Like  Lee, 
he  was  almost  a  bishop ;  like  Lee,  he  needed  no  official 
dignity  to  manifest  his  greatness. 

George  Dougharty  was  born  in  South  Carolina,  also 
in  1772,  and  began  to  preach  in  his  twenty-sixth  year. 
Nine  years  after,  broken  all  to  pieces  by  study,  by 
toil  and  by  disease,  he  carried  through  the  annual  con- 
ference at  Sparta,  Ga.,  a  resolution  that  "if  any 
preacher  should  desert  his  station  through  fear,  in 
time  of  sickness  or  danger,  the  conference  should  never 
employ  that  man  again."  No  mob  could  frighten 
him,  no  disease  get  through  his  body  to  his  soul,  no 
difficulties  daunt  his  ardent  spirit.  He  hungered  for 
knowledge  and  thirsted  for  men's  souls.  Original, 
lucid,  swift  of  mind  and  swift  of  speech,  he  would 
have  been  overmastering  in  his  eloquence  from  the 
sheer  intensity  of  his  nature;  the  inspiration  of  God 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  105 

made  him  irresistible.  Like  Bigelow,  nay,  like  his 
Master,  without  form  or  comeliness,  for  small-pox 
had  disfigured  a  beautiful  face,  his  tall,  ungainly 
form  was  the  home  of  spiritual  energies  and  beauties 
of  the  rarest  kind.  Terrible  as  lightning,  the  rowdies 
who  came  thundering  into  camp  with  the  tramp  of 
buffaloes,  fled  like  frightened  swine  before  the  out- 
break of  his  appalling  speech.  Gentle  as  moonlight, 
the  only  fear  of  his  dying  hour  was  that  he  was  too 
much  trouble  to  his  friends.  In  a  brief  life  of  less 
than  two-score  years  he  wrought  himself,  like  some 
amazing  natural  energy,  into  the  minds  and  char- 
acters of  thousands. 

But  what  folly  tempts  me  beyond  mere  names  ?  The 
Methodist  pioneers  and  their  work !  One  hand  alone 
of  all  that  ever  wrote  is  equal  to  the  theme — the  hand 
that  wrote  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  And  even  that 
would  break  down  at  last  in  divine  despair  with  its 
— "Time  would  fail  me  to  tell"  of  Owen  and  of  Web- 
ster; of  Ruff,  the  spiritual  father  of  Garrettson;  of 
Littlejohn,  who  equaled  Dickins  in  learning;  of 
Easter,  who  counted  McKendree  and  George  among 
his  trophies ;  of  the  "three  bishops" — Shaw  and  Lakin 
and  Jacob — who  first  penetrated  the  wilderness  of 
western  Pennsylvania;  of  Wilson  Lee,  who  hazarded 
his  life  upon  the  frontiers  of  Ohio  and  Kentucky;  of 
Sargent  and  McHenry,  of  Isaac  Smith,  of  Penn 
Chandler,  of  Solomon  Sharp,  of  Sale,  of  Strange, 
who  gave  back  his  house  so  that  he  might  keep  on 
singing — 


106  IN  MEMOEIAM 

"No  foot  of  ground  do  I  possess, 
No  cottage  in  this  wilderness;"* 

of  Billy  Hibbard  and  Peter  Vannest,  of  Samuel 
Parker,  of  David  Young,  and  scores  of  others  "of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy." 

The  historic  changes  of  the  American  continent  have 
been  so  rapid  and  so  startling  that  an  accurate  picture 
of  the  West  and  Southwest  of  a  hundred  years  ago 
seems  like  a  disordered  dream.  Bedford,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  Cumberland,  Maryland,  were  at  that  time 
outposts  of  civilized  life.  Not  till  1794  did  the 
Indians  abandon  Ohio,  pursued  by  the  mad  threat  of 
Mad  Anthony  Wayne,  that  he  would  rise  from  his 
grave  to  destroy  them  if  they  ever  dared  to  return. 
The  only  roads  in  Ohio  when  this  century  began 
were  paths  made  by  cutting  out  the  underbrush,  and 
blazing  or  marking  the  trees.  Sometimes  not  even 
the  underbrush  was  cut  away,  and  the  traveler  was 
obliged  to  follow  the  marks.  In  the  spring  he  was 
often  knee-deep  in  mud;  in  the  winter,  if  without  a 
compass,  hopelessly  adrift  in  the  snow.  At  night,  in 
all  seasons,  he  was  exposed  to  the  jaws  of  ravenous 
beasts. 

But  rough  as  was  the  country,  the  settlers  were 
sometimes  worse.     For  months  and  years  the  little 


*  Chancellor  Sims  tells  me  that  upon  his  death-bed  the 
title-deeds  of  another  farm  were  brought  to  Strange,  which 
he  accepted,  saying  he  was  glad  that  his  family  was  pro- 
vided for.  I  wish  I  knew  the  giver 's  name,  that  I  might 
record  it  here. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  107 

class  of  Jonah  Johnson,  at  Marietta,  Ohio,  could 
never  meet  without  being  assaulted  by  a  lawless  mob, 
who  stoned  the  house,  broke  the  windows,  fired  squibs, 
and  covered  the  chimney  in  order  to  annoy  the  wor- 
shipers with  smoke.  In  new  communities  men  are  apt 
to  be  a  law  unto  themselves,  and  righteousness  must 
be  clothed  with  courage,  with  power,  and  with  light, 
to  bring  such  social  chaos  into  order.  Abbott  had 
been  assaulted  with  bayonets  even  in  New  Jersey.  But 
every  western  preacher  might  have  to  face  a  mob,  and 
camp-meetings  must  be  policed  by  brethren  who  could 
fight  as  well  as  pray.  The  subtler  danger  was  the 
greater  one,  the  danger  of  losing  their  great  love  for 
souls  in  the  midst  of  difficulties  which  wore  away  the 
nerves  and  stirred  the  baser  passions.  But  God 
wrought  in  the  western  wilds  in  his  own  mysterious 
way.  The  rough  scuffle  was  often  the  beginning  of  a 
better  life,  the  arms  that  clutched  each  other  in  des- 
perate struggle,  often  twined  afterwards  in  Christian 
love ;  from  the  mouths  which  had  uttered  curses  came 
the  hallelujahs  that  made  the  sky  resound  as  when  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy  to  the  choir  of  the  morn- 
ing stars. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  suggest  that  there  were  no 
shadows  to  this  picture — backsliding  and  apostacies, 
cowardice  and  jealousies,  zeal  without  knowledge, 
precious  lives  unduly  wasted,  dissensions,  schisms, 
open  quarrel  and  disruption.  Even  McKendree 
swerved  for  a  moment  in  the  O'Kelly  trouble.  Lee 
was  perhaps  defeated  by  a  rumor  which  Asbury  felt 


108  IN  MEMORIAM 

compelled  openly  to  disavow.  Bishop  George  speaks 
sadly,  in  his  memoir,  of  the  division  he  encountered 
among  the  people,  and  of  the  growing  disposition 
among  the  preachers  to  deal  sharply  with  each  other. 
The  very  ablest  itinerants  were  often  forced  to  locate ; 
nearly  all  who  married  must  do  so  or  leave  their 
wives  alone  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year,  in  many 
cases  returning  to  them  poorer  than  at  their  going. 
So  that  the  depleted  ranks  were  of  necessity  filled  up 
with  the  crude  and  inexperienced,  who  often  marred 
instead  of  making ;  for  nothing  is  truer  than  Asbury's 
saying:  "The  preacher  who  does  no  good  is  sure  to 
do  much  harm/' 

Of  culture,  that  is  of  classical  culture,  the  pioneers 
were  almost  destitute.  Dickins  was  an  Eton  scholar, 
Coke  an  Oxford  graduate;  some  few  of  them  had  as 
good  an  education  as  the  schools  of  the  Middle  States 
would  afford,  but  many  of  them  were  destitute  in  early 
years  of  the  very  elements  of  knowledge.  But  happy 
is  that  school  of  theology  where  the  students  hunger 
and  thirst  for  knowledge  as  did  many  of  the  fathers. 
Asbury's  first  savings  were  spent  for  books;  many  of 
his  helpers  struggled  to  read  the  Bible  in  Greek  and 
Hebrew.  Valentine  Cook  mastered  German  so  as  to 
preach  it  intelligibly.  Henry  Boehm,  in  spite  of  the 
surroundings  of  his  boyhood,  which  only  those 
familiar  with  "Pennsylvania  Dutch"  can  fully  appre- 
ciate, wrote  German  of  the  finest  quality.  "I  remem- 
ber reading  to  George  Dougharty,"  wrote  Lovick 
Pierce,  "in  our  English  Bible,  while  he  read  in  his 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  109 

Hebrew  Bible,  until  I  observed  that  the  powerful 
working  of  his  mind  had  completely  exhausted  him." 
"It  is  matter  of  astonishment  to  many  who  have 
become  intimate  with  Methodist  preachers,"  wrote 
Judge  McLean,  "that  men  who  traveled  frontier  cir- 
cuits where  books  were  scarce,  and  the  preaching 
places  remote  from  each  other,  could  have  made  such 
progress  as  they  actually  have  done  in  useful  knowl- 
edge." But  in  two  kinds  of  knowledge  they  were 
unsurpassed — in  knowledge  of  the  human  heart  and 
the  English  Bible.  The  former  they  learned  to  know 
in  all  the  naked  simplicity  of  unconventional  life, 
the  latter  they  studied  upon  horseback,  or  upon  their 
knees  under  God's  open  sky,  or  lying  face-forward 
upon  their  elbows  before  the  blazing  pine-knots  that 
served  at  once  to  heat  and  light  the  frontier  cabin. 

Unhampered  by  a  culture  which  taught  them  to 
read  all  manner  of  traditions  into  the  Scriptures,  they 
came  to  the  Word  of  God  with  the  healthy  minds  of 
eager  children,  baptized  with  holy  zeal,  and  illu- 
minated with  divine  intelligence.  Their  souls 
expanded  as  they  inspired  the  Word  of  God;  their 
utterance  grew  clear  and  strong  from  drinking  of 
the  river  which  has  cut  deep  and  wide  the  channels 
of  our  English  speech.  Their  theology  was  a  mar- 
velous blending  of  Revelation,  of  Wesleyan  tradition, 
and  of  intuitive  philosophy.  The  great  realities  of 
sin  and  righteousness,  and  a  judgment  to  come,  were 
as  manifest  to  them  as  darkness  and  daylight  and 
storm.    Each  with  a  definite  experience  of  his  own, 


110  IN  MEMORIAM 

an  experience  fresh  every  evening  and  new  every 
morning,  what  other  men  had  explained  away  as  a 
metaphor  they  knew  as  literal  fact.  "The  Spirit 
itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God,"  was  more  to  them  than  glorious 
hyperbole.  "The  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  cleanseth  from 
all  sin/'  the  most  ungrammatical  among  them  refused 
to  construe  into  the  future  tense.  The  great  love 
with  which  they  felt  themselves  beloved  made  them 
too  strong  for  the  narrow  logic  and  contracted  exegesis 
which  denied  the  possibilities  of  mercy  to  any  human 
creature.  Free  grace  and  full  salvation !  If  God  were 
good  and  great,  if  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  were  any- 
thing more  than  the  world's  best  dream,  then  free 
grace  and  full  salvation  must  be  true. 

They  were  no  respectors  of  persons,  and  therefore 
made  a  profound  impression  upon  men  and  women 
of  every  condition  of  life.  Benjamin  Rush  thought 
Gill  the  greatest  of  divines,  and  William  Penn 
Chandler  was  his  bosom  friend.  Perry  Hall,  the  home 
of  Henry  Gough,  has  echoed  to  the  prayers  of  many 
a  pioneer  preacher.  Mrs.  Russell,  the  sister  of  Patrick 
Henry,  told  John  Tunnell  that  until  he  came  she 
knew  not  what  religion  meant.  McKendree  and  Gatch 
were  the  cherished  friends  of  John  McLean.  Yet 
the  fathers  never  betrayed  the  rich  by  obsequious 
cowardice,  or  insulted  the  poor  with  supercilious 
neglect,  or  the  worst  conceits  of  patronizing  conde- 
scension. The  convicted  murderer  upon  the  scaffold, 
the  prisoner  in  his  wretched  jail,  the  beggar  on  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  111 

highway,  the  desperadoes  of  town  or  forest,  the  chil- 
dren playing  by  the  roadside,  the  slaves  in  the  rice- 
swamp,  the  Indian  in  his  wigwam,  all  were  human 
souls,  all  were  lost  children  of  the  living  God,  whom 
Christ  and  they  were  out  together  hunting  at  the 
peril  of  their  lives.  "Who  will  go  to  the  desert  land, 
the  almost  impassable  swamps,  to  the  bilious  diseases 
of  the  Great  Pee  Dee,  the  region  of  poverty  and  broken 
constitutions?"  asked  Francis  Asbury.  No  wonder 
that  men's  hearts  are  standing  still,  when  the  quiver- 
ing voice  of  Enoch  George  breaks  the  silence,  "Here 
am  I;  send  me."  This  courage,  this  humility,  this 
faith,  this  intensity,  this  power,  this  all-embracing 
love,  how  is  it  to  be  explained? 

A  shepherd  stands  watching  his  flock  on  the  edge 
of  a  desert  overshadowed  by  the  rugged  sides  of  a 
barren  mountain,  when  lo !  a  flame  of  fire  bursts  from 
a  neighboring  bush.  He  looks  to  see  the  crackling 
twigs  fall  to  ashes,  to  see  the  bush  vanish  like  a  vision 
from  his  eyes.  But  it  burns  and  is  not  consumed. 
And  he  says,  I  will  turn  aside  and  see  the  great  sight, 
why  the  bush  is  not  burnt.  And  when  he  turned  aside 
to  see,  God  called  to  him  out  of  the  midst  of  the 
burning  bush. 

Shall  I  go  on?  Must  I  explain?  0  God  of 
Abraham,  and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob,  speak  to  us 
from  out  the  flaming  branches  of  our  fathers'  lives ! 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS 


COMMEMORATIVE  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    AT    THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL    CELE- 
BRATION OF  GARRETT  BIBLICAL 
INSTITUTE  MAY  7,  1906. 

I. 

GARRETT  Biblical  Institute  originated  through 
forces  that  have  beeen  shaping  Methodism  since  the 
days  of  Susanna  Wesley; — the  generous  intelligence 
of  pious  women,  the  zeal  of  Christian  preachers 
hungry  for  the  power  of  knowledge,  and  the  energy 
of  devoted  laymen,  wise  to  perceive  that  light  must 
temper  fire  to  render  it  a  means  of  life. 

Eliza  Garrett,  to  judge  from  her  portrait  and  from 
the  scanty  records  of  her  that  we  cherish  sacredly, 
was  a  woman  of  rare  simplicity  and  intelligence  and 
piety.  Brought  to  Chicago  by  her  adventurous  hus- 
band, when  Chicago  was  only  a  frontier  village,  she 
braved  with  him  the  difficulties  and  discomforts  of 
pioneer  success  and  added  to  his  rude  strength  that 
of  her  finer  and  gentler  nature. 

She  became  a  Christian  and  a  Methodist,  through 
the  preaching  of  a  young  man  too  little  known  to  our 
present  generation ; — a  young  preacher  from  Tennes- 
see to  whom  Chicago  Christianity  and  Chicago  Meth- 
odism are  greatly  indebted.  The  story  of  his  conver- 
sion when  a  boy  is  thrilling  and  inspiring;  but  the 
native  fibre  of  the  lad  was  also  quite  remarkable.  He 
115 


116  IN  MEMOKIAM 

possessed  that  glorious  endowment,  a  prompt,  intrepid, 
indomitable  will.  This  made  it  easy  for  him  to  prefer 
the  reproach  of  Christ  to  his  father's  roof,  and  when 
he  became  obedient  to  the  vision  that  called  him  to 
preach,  this  carried  him  through  the  trials  of  his 
school  life,  made  bitter  by  extreme  poverty.  This, 
too,  made  his  eloquence  effective.  For  it  never 
occurred  to  Peter  Borein  to  think  the  sermon  ended 
until  the  listener  was  saved.  To  him  the  tears  of  his 
hearers  were  not  a  tribute  to  his  powers  but  an  invita- 
tion to  engage  in  personal  entreaty,  to  seek  out  con- 
trite hearts  in  their  homes  and  stores  and  workshops 
so  that  he  might  win  them  permanently  for  Jesus 
Christ. 

It  was  Peter  Borein's  persuasive  pleadings  that  led 
Eliza  Garrett  to  her  Saviour;  and  the  expression  of 
his  regret  that  poverty  had  denied  him  an  adequate 
preparation  for  the  ministry,  created  and  fostered  in 
her  generous  mind  the  vision  of  a  school  in  which 
such  men  might  be  trained  to  the  utmost  efficiency. 

John  Dempster,  like  Peter  Borein,  lacked  the  asso- 
ciations and  the  discipline  of  the  college ;  he,  too,  was 
a  man  mighty  in  speech  and  in  deed,  though  his 
eloquence  was  wholly  different  in  type  from  that  of 
Mrs.  Garrett's  young  pastor.  The  son  of  a  Scotch 
father,  a  Presbyterian  minister,  who  had  been  once  a 
Methodist  itinerant,  John  Dempster  united  in  himself 
the  four  qualities  of  the  Caledonian  with  the  romantic 
traits  of  the  American  pioneer.    Bereft  of  his  father 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  117 

in  his  childhood,  the  orphan  early  became  a  wanderer 
and  this  romantic  impulse  shaped  his  whole  career. 
It  led  him  from  New  York  to  Canada,  from  North  to 
South  America,  from  Buenos  Ayres  to  New  York  City, 
from  the  mountains  of  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire 
to  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan.  And  he  died  with 
visions  of  theological  schools  on  the  hither  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  on  the  Pacific  slopes  of  the 
great  hills  still  lingering  in  his  mind.  For  the  wan- 
derer was  suddenly  called  to  larger  activities,  although 
not  before  he  had  left  upon  this  region  imperishable 
traces  of  his  power.  Pathetic  and  significant,  indeed, 
is  the  craving  of  men  like  Peter  Borein  and  John 
Dempster  for  the  strength  of  knowledge.  Neither" 
of  them  lacked  spirituality,  both  knew  the  value  of 
strong  feeling,  each  of  them  recognized  the  impor- 
tance of  a  consecrated  will.  Dempster  especially  was 
a  vigorous  thinker,  who  wrestled  with  the  funda- 
mental problems  of  life;  he  certainly  never  imagined 
that  erudition  however  minute,  or  learning  however 
extensive,  could  be  a  substitute  for  an  intelligence 
obedient  to  the  word  of  Christ.  But  with  a  preter- 
natural insight  and  foresight  he  measured  the  needs 
of  the  American  empire  that  he  saw  in  the  making. 
And  although  he  deemed  divine  illumination  the 
transfiguring  and  essential  element  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  men  for  the  Christian  ministry,  it  was  clear 
as  revelation  to  him  that  the  coming  multitudes  of 
the  western  world  would  not  submit  permanently  to 


118  IN  MEMOKIAM 

the  spiritual  guidance  of  preachers  ignorant  of  sci- 
ence, of  history,  of  human  society  and  of  divine  reve- 
lation.   Yet  his  plans  were  bitterly  opposed. 

His  Biblical  Institutes  were  not  erected  easily.  On 
the  contrary,  his  determination  to  found  them  ex- 
posed him  to  distrust  and  ridicule,  and  even  obloquy. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  itinerancy  there  has  been 
resistance  both  active  and  passive  to  the  educational 
system  which  owes  its  origin  to  John  Wesley.  That 
illustrious  teacher  was  compelled  to  tell  his  helpers 
that  if  they  would  not  study  their  books  they  must 
return  to  their  homes;  the  heroic  efforts  of  Adam 
Clarke  to  become  a  great  scholar  were  seconded  by  very 
few  of  his  ministerial  brethren,  and  his  boldness  in 
exegesis  provoked  an  enmity  which  pursued  him  even 
beyond  the  grave.  And  as  in  England,  so  in  America. 
The  plan  for  district  or  conference  schools,  quite  as 
remarkable  as  anything  in  early  Methodism,  the  plan 
set  forth  in  detail  in  the  early  minutes  of  Asbury's 
Council  elicited  from  James  O'Kelly  deliverances  so 
bitter  that  they  might  be  termed  vituperation.  And 
yet  no  part  of  our  history  is  more  wonderful,  when 
it  is  studied  locally,  than  the  history  of  our  American 
Methodist  schools;  schools  established  by  a  few  reso- 
lute men,  and  of  which  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  the  foundation  stones  were  cemented  with  blood. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  our  pioneers,  however,  to 
belittle  their  reasons  for  this  opposition.  They  were 
men,  many  of  them,  of  great  natural  gifts.  They 
were  compelled  to  meet  the  opposition  of  a  professedly 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  119 

learned  clergy.  In  some  cases,  to  be  sure,  they  found 
sympathy,  but  in  most  they  were  treated  with  reserve 
and  ridiculed  for  their  want  of  college  training. 

They  read  their  Bibles  in  the  light  that  streamed 
from  human  faces  and  from  the  countenance  of  God. 
They  trusted  more  to  the  beatings  of  their  own  con- 
verted hearts  and  to  the  joys  of  their  own  experi- 
ence than  to  the  refinements  of  Hebrew  syntax  or 
Greek  etymology.  Their  theology  was  simple,  easy  to 
state  and  easy  to  apply.  "All  men  are  sinners,  all 
men  can  be  saved  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  there  is  full 
salvation  to  all  whose  faith  apprehends  the  living 
Christ  in  his  power  to  save  now  and  to  save  com- 
pletely." They  drew  the  proofs  of  it  both  from  the 
Holy  Scriptures  and  from  the  writings  of  God  upon 
their  own  souls.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  for  such 
men  to  dread  the  influences  of  schools  established 
avowedly  to  obtain  a  more  learned  ministry.  They 
feared  that  such  schools  would  decoy  into  the  work 
some  whom  God  had  not  called,  who  were  seeking  a 
livelihood  for  themselves  rather  than  eternal  life  for 
their  fellow-men.  They  feared  also  that  even  for 
those  who  were  called  of  God  to  the  ministry,  the 
atmosphere  of  the  schools  might  be  too  frigid,  that  it 
would  chill  if  it  did  not  kill  their  ardor.  And  finally 
they  feared  the  substitution  of  elaborate  preparation 
for  that  inspiration  of  love  which  they  knew  to  be 
the  preacher's  chief  power  in  public  and  in  private 
ministries.  In  a  word,  they  feared,  and  they  feared 
rightly,  a  professional  clergy. 


120  IN  MEMORIAM 

Fortunately  for  us  John  Dempster  and  not  a  few 
of  our  early  leaders,  although  themselves  without 
scholastic  training,  were  clearsighted  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  the  mission  of  Methodism  required  it  to 
be  more  than  an  awakening  agency.  They  saw,  as 
Wesley  had  seen,  that  without  training  the  fruits  of 
evangelism  would  perish.  The  ravages  of  Millerism 
and  Mormonism  soon  taught  them  that  their  converts 
must  be  established  in  the  truth;  that  denunciation 
of  popular  error  only  advertises  and  propagates  the 
contagious  hallucination.  The  gospel  seed  must  be 
kept  unmixed  from  baleful  folly,  and  sown  on 
ground  tilled  thoroughly.  John  Dempster  moreover 
was  among  the  first  to  perceive  that  our  colleges  and 
universities  would  be  ultimately  and  quite  rapidly 
secularized.  Harvard  College  was  originally  a  school 
for  ministers.  Its  motto  remains  to  this  day  "Pro 
Christo  et  Ecclesiae,"  but  it  required  all  Mr.  Lowell's 
wit  and  ingenuity  to  stretch  that  motto  into  anything 
like  correspondence  with  present  conditions  at  Cam- 
bridge. The  rapid  development  of  physical  science, 
its  numerous  contributions  to  material  wealth,  the 
startling  developments  in  the  fields  of  geology  and 
biology,  extreme  specialization  in  every  department  of 
investigation  have  extinguished  schools  of  the  earliest 
type.  Such  a  teacher  as  Alexander  von  Humboldt 
would  create  as  much  astonishment  in  the  modern 
class  room  as  a  living  mastodon ;  and  be  regarded  not 
only  as  a  specimen  of  an  extinct  but  of  an  inferior 
species. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  121 

It  was,  I  repeat,  an  almost  intuitive  forecast  of  this 
transformation  of  the  college  that  guided  the  founders 
of  our  theological  schools.  They  saw  that  however 
valuable  the  college  of  liberal  arts  might  remain  as  a 
preparation  for  life  in  general,  it  would  soon 
cease  to  be  sufficient  as  a  preparation  for  the 
Christian  minister  of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries.  Indeed  it  might  easily  become  a  hostile 
force,  difficult  to  encounter  and  more  difficult 
to  conquer;  and  therefore  the  minister  of  the 
future  would  require  a  preparation  in  which  he 
would  be  furnished  for  every  good  word  and 
work;  a  preparation  that  would  fit  him  to  cope 
with  science  falsely  so-called,  and  with  the  supersti- 
tions that  perpetually  arise  to  plague  and  to  destroy 
the  multitude.  And  their  breadth  of  view  was  quite 
as  notable  as  their  foresight.  They  sought  to  prepare 
men  for  missionary  enterprise  in  distant  lands,  and 
for  work  upon  our  own  frontiers  where  the  Ten 
Commandments  are  frequently  suspended,  and  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  dwindles  to  a  memory.  They 
recognized  that  it  would  be  alike  difficult  to  hold  the 
rural  community  and  the  great  city;  that  into  the 
former  would  penetrate  inevitably  the  teachings  of 
modern  literature  and  of  modern  science,  while  the 
latter  with  its  material  prosperity  and  its  polyglot 
populations  would  force  upon  the  Protestant  minister 
problems  difficult  enough  to  challenge  the  strongest 
intelligence  trained  by  the  wisest  masters. 

The  two  forces  already  mentioned,  the  generosity 


122  IN  MEMOEIAM 

of  a  pious  woman  and  the  resolute  zeal  of  preachers 
hungry  for  the  power  of  knowledge,  were  rendered 
most  beneficent  and  efficient  by  a  third  energy,  that 
of  a  group  of  laymen  as  noteworthy  as  any  known 
to  our  American  Methodism,  Grant  Goodrich,  John 
Evans,  Orrington  Lunt.  Each  of  these  strong  char- 
acters differed  strikingly  from  the  others,  yet  all  of 
them  united  easily  in  a  common  fourth  as  to  the 
value  of  knowledge  and  the  power  of  the  Gospel. 
Each  of  them  was  a  notable  instance  of  the  pioneer 
spirit,  each  a  splendid  trophy  of  Methodist  victory. 
All  three  were  shrewd  men  of  the  world  but  as  gener- 
ous as  they  were  prosperous.  They  believed  in  success 
in  that  larger  sense  which  glorifies  the  word — success 
shared  with  the  community  in  which  they  lived,  suc- 
cess that  enriched  the  church  through  which  they  had 
been  saved,  success  not  merely  for  the  children  of 
their  households,  but  for  the  new  generation  that 
they  hoped  and  planned  to  make  divinely  strong  and 
beautiful. 

Grant  Goodrich  gave  Mrs.  Garrett  his  counsel  with- 
out money  or  price.  He  furthered  her  plans.  He, 
with  his  friends,  rallied  to  the  support  of  Dr. 
Dempster  with  their  influences  and  their  means. 
Judge  Goodrich  passed  away  before  the  others,  but 
his  name  is  inseparable  from  the  history  of  our 
school.  Governor  Evans  removed  from  the  beautiful 
village  that  still  bears  his  name  to  become  the  inform- 
ing soul  of  Colorado,  while  Orrington  Lunt  was  spared 
to  us  for  many  years  to  be  our  sagacity  and  safeguard, 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  123 

to  give  us  the  joy  of  his  presence,  the  support  of  his 
character,  the  fruits  of  his  beneficent  affection.  To 
give  us,  too,  the  priceless  boon  of  his  daily  prayers, 
for  seldom  indeed  did  he  fail  to  mention  the  Insti- 
tute and  University,  when  he  talked  with  the  God  in 
whom  he  trusted. 

It  is  no  injustice  to  the  strong  men  who  have 
taught  in  Garrett  Biblical  Institute  to  say  that  John 
Dempster  has  been  from  the  beginning  the  informing 
spirit  of  the  school.  Deeply  rooted  in  the  love  of  God, 
his  vigorous  nature  branched  out  boldly  into  a  love  of 
truth,  a  love  of  men,  and  a  love  of  effects.  One  of 
two  converts  in  an  apparently  unsuccessful  meeting 
he  had  passed  from  awful  darkness,  or  to  use  his  own 
words,  from  "the  blackness  of  a  terrible  night,"  to 
the  glory  of  a  divinely  splendid  sunrise.  He  never 
forgot  the  agony  and  he  never  forgot  the  vision.  But 
his  mind  was  eager  and  penetrating;  his  conscience 
pure  and  courageous;  he  knew  that  his  experience 
involved  essential  problems  which  he  must  not  evade 
but  encounter  bravely,  and  if  possible,  conquer.  I  am 
quite  ready  to  accept  Dr.  Hemenway's  statement  that 
there  was  nothing  impressive  in  his  stature  or  his 
features,  but  I  cannot  read  his  sermons  or  addresses 
without  feeling  the  glow  of  two  very  searching  eyes, 
or  without  detecting  the  vibrations  of  a  very  earnest 
voice.  There  is  nothing  trivial  in  his  topics  or  in 
his  treatment  of  them.  This  man  who  appeals  to  me 
is  a  wrestling  Jacob,  a  Jacob  after  the  wrestle  though, 
an  Israel  crippled  in  the  desperate  struggle  but  a 


124  IN  MEMORIAM 

prince  who  has  had  power  with  God  and  prevailed. 
Such  themes  as  "Providence,"  and  "Truth,"  and  "The 
Authority  of  the  Supernatural,"  and  "The  Super- 
natural Characteristics  of  Christ,"  attracted  him  by 
their  grandeur  and  baffled  him  by  their  mystery. 
Baffled  but  did  not  conquer  him,  for  his  utterances 
commanded  the  respect  of  the  chief  writers  of  Meth- 
odism (and  there  were  giants  in  those  days),  which 
was  ample  compensation  for  the  stings  of  supercilious 
criticism,  and  the  charges  of  Pantheism  and  sceptical 
tendencies  flung  at  him  by  self-appointed  champions 
of  doctrines  that  they  were  incompetent  even  to  under- 
stand, much  less  to  defend.  Dr.  Dempster's  love  of 
truth,  however,  never  deteriorated  to  a  love  of  paradox 
or  a  love  of  novelty.  It  vindicated  itself  by  thorough- 
ness and  coherence  of  thinking;  by  patience  of  investi- 
gation and  caution  of  expression.  It  was  compre- 
hensive and  catholic,  open-minded  yet  firm,  while 
sturdily  intolerant  of  the  flippant  and  the  trivial  and 
the  unessential. 

He  loved  men.  I  do  not  say  humanity,  but 
men.  This  made  him  from  the  hour  of  his  own 
conversion  untiring  in  his  personal  efforts  for 
their  salvation.  It  destroyed  for  him  all  distinctions 
of  rank,  or  class,  or  complexion.  It  led  him  to  endure 
patiently  and  cheerfully  the  hardships  of  his  early 
ministry.  It  stirred  him  to  missionary  enterprise  and 
carried  him  to  South  America,  it  inspired  him  to 
plead  with  Mr.  Lincoln  for  speedy  emancipation,  and 
it  won  for  him  in  spite  of  his  austerities  and  peculiari- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  125 

ties  the  admiration  and  affection  of  his  colleagues  and 
his  pupils. 

But  more  than  this  he  had  that  passion  for  genuine 
effects  which  is  the  glory  of  Methodist  history,  the 
world  over.  I  do  not  mean  a  passion  for  advertise- 
ment and  spurious  success,  the  splash  of  motion  with- 
out progress,  the  shouts  of  transient  victories  turning 
to  permanent  defeat.  But  I  mean  a  passion  for  results 
that  are  realities,  that  have  both  pith  and  permanence, 
for  fruit  that  needs  no  cunning  covering  of  gauze  to 
give  it  color  and  to  hide  decay.  Here  was  a  man  who 
achieved  and  who  believed  in  achievement,  a  man 
who  insisted  upon  prompt  as  well  as  permanent 
achievement,  yet  a  man  never  decoyed  into  sympathy 
with  methods  that  merely  counterfeit  efficiency.  These 
characteristics  of  Dr.  Dempster  are  traceable  through 
every  period  of  our  history.  Garrett  Biblical  Insti- 
tute, rooted  and  grounded  like  its  first  great  teacher 
in  the  love  of  God,  has  stood  for  fifty  years,  bearing 
upon  its  branches  the  same  precious  fruit — the  love 
of  truth,  the  love  of  men,  and  the  love  of  prompt  and 
permanent  effects. 

Before  I  speak  of  Dr.  Dempster's  colleagues  or  of 
his  successors,  and  before  I  make  mention  of  their 
pupils,  I  must  glance  at  one  impressive  figure  that 
rises  from  our  early  records — the  form  of  Matthew 
Simpson.  In  1859,  writes  Dr.  Hemenway  to  a  friend, 
the  village  was  excited  by  the  news  that  Bishop 
Simpson  intended  to  make  Evanston  his  home.  He 
was  then  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength,  and  already 


126  IN  MEMORIAM 

famous  for  his  thrilling  eloquence.  He  came.  He 
accepted  the  presidency  of  the  school.  Magnanimous, 
far-sighted  statesman  that  he  was,  he  gave  it  the 
weight  of  his  influence,  in  the  period  of  his  greatest 
power.  In  after  years  I  came  to  know  him  person- 
ally, and  to  receive  from  him  not  only  inspiration  but 
priceless  instruction.  And  I  can  well  imagine  that 
his  presence  in  this  community,  and  his  advice  to  this 
early  faculty  were  highly  prized.  For  there  were  in 
Matthew  Simpson  springs  of  intelligence  and  spiritual 
magic  that  were  full  of  surprises.  He  had  no  attrac- 
tions of  person  or  of  voice  to  the  superficial  observer 
when  seen  at  rest,  yet  there  was  something  startling 
even  in  his  private  conversation  when  his  mind  was 
stung  into  activity  by  some  sudden  thought,  just  as 
there  was  something  overwhelming  in  the  public  reve- 
lations of  him  when  audience  and  subject  combined  to 
urge  him  to  his  utmost  effort. 

But  what  I  desire  to  note  here  is  the  breadth  and 
range  and  candor  of  his  mind.  He,  too,  loved  the 
truth,  not  in  any  pretentious  spirit,  not  in  the  vanity 
of  men  who  decorate  themselves  with  novelties,  but 
in  the  spirit  of  the  Apostle  who  would  prove  all  things 
and  hold  fast  that  which  is  good.  He  was  the  most 
progressive  bishop  of  his  time,  and  his  ideas  of  prog- 
ress have  been  incorporated  into  the  constitution  of 
American  Methodism.  Greater,  however,  has  been  the 
influence  of  his  catholic  spirit,  which  he  breathed  into 
the  students  of  Indiana  Asbury  University,  and  which, 
I  have  no  doubt,  whenever  they  heard  him,  enlarged 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  127 

and  ennobled  the  students  of  Garrett  Biblical  Insti- 
tute. The  original  faculties  of  our  Methodist  insti- 
tutions were  rich  in  personal  power.  The  names  of 
Fisk  and  Olin,  of  Thomson  and  Merrick,  of  Durbin, 
McClintock,  Emory  and  Allen,  of  Hunter  and  Simp- 
son make  our  annals  splendid.  And  the  first  faculty 
of  this  Institute  though  small  in  numbers  was  strong 
in  courage,  intelligence  and  piety.  Dr.  Bannister, 
like  Dr.  Dempster,  was  deeply  interested  in  the  larger 
problems,  ready  at  any  time  to  match  conclusions  with 
his  vigorous  colleague.  Dr.  Kidder,  courteous,  sys- 
tematic, self-possessed,  industrious,  taught  by  precept 
and  example  the  value  of  method  in  multiplying  one's 
efficiency.  Dr.  Bannister,  though  better  trained  than 
Dempster,  was  less  intense  in  thought,  serener  in 
feeling,  more  facile  yet  far  less  powerful  in  speech. 
Differing  from  both  outwardly  and  inwardly,  Francis 
Hemenway  exercised  a  peculiar  charm.  Like  them 
he  loved  truth  and  men  and  permanent  results;  but 
he  was  more  sensitive  than  they  to  the  music  of  poetry 
and  of  fine  diction,  to  the  delights  of  literature  and  to 
the  beauties  of  nature. 

It  was  indeed  a  rare  company  of  teachers;  happy 
the  scholars  that  enjoyed  their  instruction ! 

Equally  notable  have  been  their  successors.  Ninde 
and  Ridgaway  resembled  Hemenway  rather  than 
Dempster;  Raymond  and  Bennett  were  of  the  other 
mould.  The  former  were  examples  of  sweetness  and 
light ;  the  latter  of  intellectual  power  environed  by  in- 
tense feeling.    Ninde  and  Ridgaway  loved  the  beauty 


128  IN  MEMOEIAM 

of  holiness;  truth  attracted  them  because  it  glorified 
the  world  and  blessed  the  community  that  felt  its 
radiance.  Each  of  them  delighted  in  John  Wesley's 
"warming  of  the  heart;"  each  was  eager  to  make  it 
the  experience  of  those  to  whom  he  preached. 

Miner  Raymond  was  an  original  thinker  rather 
than  a  scholar,  a  man  deeply  interested  in  funda- 
mental problems.  Mistrustful  of  the  verbal  cloud- 
land  that  careless  observers  mistake  for  mountain 
ranges,  rich  in  hidden  mines  of  wisdom,  he  uttered 
the  thoughts  of  the  wise  in  the  language  of  the 
people.  Like  Dr.  Dempster,  he  did  not  escape  sharp 
criticism ;  indeed  he  was  compelled  to  defend  himself 
in  words  of  precious  substance  and  thrilling  eloquence. 
And  in  that  suitable  declaration  he  recognized,  with 
every  great  thinker  in  the  history  of  theology,  that 
the  prime  question  after  all  is  this:  How  shall  we 
conceive  of  God?  there  is  the  central  mystery  around 
which  all  other  problems  resolve. 

Dr.  Bennett  united  the  vigorous  thinker  with  the 
thorough  scholar;  so  eager  for  knowledge  that  he 
invested  all  that  he  had  in  order  to  acquire  it;  yet 
never  the  slave  of  books  or  the  idolater  of  erudite 
authority.  He  added  to  an  unusual  breadth  of  learn- 
ing the  minute  investigations  of  a  specialist;  and 
exhibited  to  his  pupils  a  mind  of  unusual  vigor,  thor- 
oughly trained  and  thoroughly  furnished.  Yet  like 
Dr.  Dempster  he  loved  men,  and  truth  for  men's  sake, 
and  he,  too,  had  that  craving  for  results  that  makes 
the  strenuous  American  so  great  a  wonder  to  less 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  129 

impatient  races.  He  craved  a  nobler  Methodism,  a 
nobler  Protestantism,  a  nobler  Christianity,  a  nobler 
world;  and  he  longed  aDd  worked  for  their  speedy 
coming. 

The  vines  here  planted  soon  bore  fruit.  Before 
many  years  had  elapsed  the  graduates  of  Garrett 
were  known  throughout  Methodism  and  beyond,  for 
their  courage,  their  intellectual  independence,  their 
missionary  zeal,  their  practical  sense  and  their  spir- 
itual power.  It  is  for  one  of  their  own  number  to 
speak  of  them  more  adequately.  It  is  enough  for  me 
to  say  that  in  them  the  whole  church  is  honored.  It 
would  be  easy  for  me  to  name  those  who  have  been 
prominent  in  ecclesiastical  administration,  in  educa- 
tional labors,  in  pastoral  activities,  and  in  missionary 
enterprises,  but  it  would  not  be  easy  to  name  those 
who  have  been  most  useful  in  the  service  of  the 
Master,  for  our  measurements  are  at  best  inadequate. 
Only  the  Lord  of  the  harvest  can  be  trusted  to  deter- 
mine which  of  his  servants  has  brought  in  the  largest 
and  richest  sheaves. 

Of  the  missionary  Bishops  of  the  Church  two  are 
graduates  of  the  Institute  and  their  names  are  often 
heard.  But  a  third  of  these  missionary  Bishops  was 
led  to  Christ  by  one  whose  name  is  seldom  mentioned 
here  in  America,  one  who  is  known  in  India  as  Dear 
Old  Fox.  And  I  take  it  that  like  things  are  true  of 
our  alumni  as  a  body.  We  may  indeed  rejoice  in 
those  that  reach  distinction  and  renown,  and  yet  if 
we  knew  everything,  we  might  be  more  touched  and 


130  IX  MEMORIAM 

more  thrilled  with  the  achievements  of  those  who  have 
been  only  eager  to  preach  the  truth,  who  have  been 
wholly  absorbed  in  their  love  of  men,  and  wholly 
employed  in  gathering  and  preserving  the  results  of 
their  personal  ministry. 

The  Institute  in  these  fifty  years  has  passed  through 
more  than  one  season  of  financial  trouble.  There  was 
a  time  quite  early  in  its  history  when  it  looked  as 
though  its  doors  must  be  closed.  It  was  carried  suc- 
cessfully through  that  period  of  distress  by  the  fidelity 
of  teachers,  the  courage  and  the  sagacity  of  friends, 
and  the  helpful  spirit  of  Methodist  preachers  and 
Methodist  laymen  in  this  Northwestern  country.  In 
1866  Methodist  women,  among  whom  Frances  Willard 
was  conspicuous,  animated  by  the  spirit  of  Eliza 
Garrett  and  the  traditions  of  early  Methodism,  united 
together  to  erect  a  building  to  the  memory  of  Barbara 
Heck.  At  a  later  period  Mrs.  Cornelia  Miller  gener- 
ously endowed  the  chair  of  Practical  Theology.  We 
should  gladly  have  welcomed  her  to  this  jubilee,  and 
offered  her  our  grateful  thanks.  It  was  not  to  be. 
Even  so,  Eliza  Garrett  passed  away  before  the  transfer 
could  be  made  of  the  Dempster  school  to  the  Institute 
that  bears  her  name.  But  these  generous  women 
found  it  blessed  to  give,  and  one  of  the  last  contribu- 
tions to  the  school  came  from  another  like  them  out 
upon  the  Pacific  Coast  whose  grateful  heart  desired 
to  perpetuate  the  influences  to  which  indirectly  she 
owed  many  blessings. 

The  Chicago  fire  that  brought  calamity  to  thousands 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  131 

spared  not  our  school.  It  would  have  perished,  per- 
haps, but  for  the  generous  sympathy  of  Methodist 
people  throughout  the  country,  and  for  the  liberality 
of  its  immediate  friends.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Institute  has  shared  in  the  prosperity  of  Chicago  and 
of  Evanston,  so  that  the  value  of  its  original  endow- 
ment has  been  greatly  enhanced,  its  buildings  in- 
creased and  improved,  and  its  equipment,  especially 
its  library,  greatly  enlarged.  The  grounds  upon 
which  its  buildings  stand  were  granted  to  the  Insti- 
tute in  perpetual  leasehold  by  the  trustees  of  North- 
western University,  and  from  the  beginning  the  rela- 
tions of  the  two  schools  have  been  amicable,  intimate, 
and  mutually  helpful.  Indeed  the  early  catalogues  of 
both  institutions  display  a  closeness  of  co-operation 
which  gave  to  the  students  of  either  Institution  all 
the  advantages  of  a  beautiful  co-operation.  It  was 
indeed  a  happy  situation  for  the  students  that  came 
here  to  Evanston,  who  might  listen  to  Kandolph 
Foster  and  John  Dempster,  to  Henry  Bannister  and 
Francis  Hemenway,  to  Matthew  Simpson  and  to 
Oliver  Marcy,  and  to  another  who,  though  among 
the  living,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  name,  to  our  honored 
Dr.  Bonbright.     (Applause.) 

It  is,  therefore,  a  pleasant  duty  on  this  occasion  to 
recall  this  co-operation  of  the  past  and  to  return 
thanks  to  the  trustees  of  the  university  for  their 
inestimable  kindness.  Throughout  this  entire  period 
the  majority  of  our  own  trustees  have  been  also 
trustees  of  Northwestern  University.    Yet  our  inter- 


132  IN  MEMORIAM 

ests  have  been  guarded  with  loving  care,  and  nothing 
has  been  done  to  prevent  our  free  activity,  and  our 
harmonious  co-operation  with  other  Methodist  col- 
leges. We  remain  today  what  we  have  been  from  the 
beginning,  a  school  for  the  entire  church,  one  of  a 
group  that  originated  in  the  mind  of  John  Dempster, 
and  by  him  intended  to  train  the  ministry  of  the 
entire  Methodist  Episcopal  Church. 


II. 


Here  I  might  stop.  But  that  were  neither  brave 
nor  wise  now  that  the  value  of  the  theological  school 
is  so  frequently  and  insistently  denied.  The  agnostic 
asserts  that  the  objects  of  our  inquiry  lie  forever 
beyond  all  human  ken,  while  the  Roman  pontiff 
asserts  his  supreme  and  exclusive  authority  in  religion 
and  in  morals,  declaring  resistance  to  his  deliver- 
ances, rebellion  against  the  decrees  of  God. 

In  Protestant  Christendom  the  blind  conservative 
reiterates  propositions  whose  origin  and  scope  he 
refuses  to  examine,  while  the  iconoclastic  radical, 
equally  arrogant,  scoffs  at  the  brave  conservative  who 
brethren.  On  the  one  hand  are  the  unlearned  and 
will  not  pluck  out  his  eyes  to  please  his  self-maimed 
the  unstable  who  wrest  the  Scriptures  to  their  own 
destruction;  on  the  other  those  who  darken  them 
with  a  multitude  of  conjectures,  or  who  mutilate  and 
reshape  them  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  a  favored 
theory.  We  are  mocked  by  one  company  as  survivals 
of  a  former  age,  as  mere  vestigial  shadows  of  the 
evangelistic  period  which  (they  affirm)  has  no  more 
to  do  with  the  present  world  than  the  magic  of  the 
middle  ages;  and  we  are  upbraided  by  another  com- 
pany because  we  will  not  recognize  the  power  of  God 
in  every  human  mimicry  of  the  operations  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  We  have  reached  a  time,  apparently,  when  it 
is  more  comfortable  to  be  crazy  than  to  be  sane;  a 
time  in  which  the  two  great  idols  of  modern  civiliza- 
133 


134  IN  MEMOKIAM 

tion,  the  brazen  god  up-to-date  and  the  wooden  god 
out-of-date  divide  between  them  the  babbling  multi- 
tude. For  this  reason,  if  for  no  other,  it  is  time  to 
ask,  What  have  schools  of  theology  in  past  times  con- 
tributed to  the  preservation  and  the  propagation  of 
the  pure  word  of  Jesus  Christ? 

Let  us  begin,  then,  with  the  period  that  extends 
from  the  apostolic  age  to  the  council  of  Chalcedon, 
and  consider  the  achievements  of  the  Apologists  and 
of  the  two  great  schools  of  Alexandria  and  of  Antioch. 
They  are  memorable  for  three  great  achievements. 
They  saved  the  Old  Testament  from  rejection; 
they  declared  and  defended  the  essential  divinity  of 
Christ;  they  preserved  and  exalted  the  precious  doc- 
trine of  His  complete  humanity. 

(1)  These  successors  of  the  apostles  carried  the  Old 
Testament  triumphantly  through  a  crisis  which  lasted 
down  to  the  days  of  Augustine,  a  crisis  of  perilous 
severity,  in  which  the  Scriptures  were  assailed  by  Jew- 
ish teachers  and  pagan  philosophers,  by  Marcionite 
Christians  and  Gnostic  Christians  whose  combined 
hostility  was  hard  indeed  to  overcome.  The  Jew, 
although  accepting  the  Old  Testament  as  the  word  of 
God,  rejected  the  Christian  interpretation  of  it  with 
scorn  and  hatred.  The  pagan  philosophers  assailed 
the  Christian  teachers  as  Atheists,  and  joined  the  Jew 
in  deriding  the  Christian  explanation  of  the  Jewish 
Scriptures;  while  they  mocked  at  the  worship  of 
Jesus,  the  crucified  Galilean.  The  Marcionites  ac- 
cepted the  Gospel  of  Luke  and  the  epistles  of  Paul, 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  135 

but  refused  to  see  in  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament 
the  God  proclaimed  by  Paul  and  manifested  in  Jesus, 
Paul's  Kedeemer.  The  Gnostics  not  only  perverted 
the  New  Testament  with  spurious  traditions  and 
fictitious  gospels,  but  they,  too,  assailed  the  Law  and 
Prophets  as  unworthy  of  consideration.  Surely  it  was 
no  small  triumph  to  make  the  Scriptures  of  despised 
Judea  the  Ublia  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  pre- 
cisely this  was  accomplished  by  Justin  and  Irenaeus, 
by  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  his  great  pupil  Origen. 
And  how  was  it  done?  Not  by  the  letter  that  kills 
but  by  the  spirit  that  makes  alive.  Jesus  himself  had 
pointed  the  way.  He  had  overthrown  the  method  of 
the  scribes ;  he  had  rejected  the  materializing  concep- 
tions of  the  Messiah,  those  that  filled  the  Jewish 
imagination  and  cramped  the  minds  of  his  own  dis- 
ciples. Paul  followed  Jesus.  For  him  the  law  and 
the  prophets  contained  the  enduring  truths  upon 
which  to  build  the  kingdom  of  God,  Jesus  himself 
being  the  chief  cornerstone.  Accused  of  making  void 
the  Law  he  replied  triumphantly,  We  establish  it 
through  faith.  It  is  quite  true  that  the  later  suc- 
cessors of  the  Apostles  allowed  themselves  great  free- 
dom and  great  boldness  of  interpretation;  but  that 
they  saved  the  Old  Testament  is  plain  enough  from 
the  declaration  of  Augustine  that  he  would  never 
have  accepted  it  if  he  had  not  learned  from 
Ambrose  the  proper  understanding  of  its  contents. 
And  Ambrose  learned  this  from  the  Greek  theologians. 
Certainly  I  should  be  loath  to  accept  the  statement 


136  IN  MEMOEIAM 

of  Cardinal  Newman  that  the  fate  of  orthodoxy  is 
bound  up  with  this  mythical  system  of  exegesis.  But 
no  candid  student  of  the  history  of  doctrine  can  fail 
to  acknowledge  that  in  spite  of  their  errors  and 
excesses  the  Apologists  and  the  Christian  Platonists 
of  Alexandria  saved  the  Old  Testament  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church  in  the  greatest  crisis  of  its  early  history. 
(2)  When  the  school  of  Antioch  developed  the 
historical  method  of  interpreting  the  Scriptures,  a 
method  so  different  from  the  allegorical  exegesis  of 
the  Alexandrian  teachers,  a  difference  of  results  be- 
came inevitable.  It  need  not  have  been  a  calamity; 
it  might  have  been  a  blessing.  That  it  occurred  in 
the  bitterness  of  hate  rather  than  in  the  radiance  of 
love  was  the  real  calamity;  and  that  the  person  of 
Christ  was  degraded  in  the  carnal  strife  was  the 
climax  of  calamity.  The  methods  of  the  two  schools 
might  have  been  combined.  For  each  had  its  reason 
for  being;  each  was  justified  by  its  results.  In  the 
Nicene  creed  the  Alexandrians  incorporated  their 
views  of  Christ's  divinity,  the  view  that  Athanasius 
subsequently  championed  against  the  world;  in  the 
creed  of  Chalcedon  Antioch  saved  for  posterity  the 
truth  of  Christ's  actual  and  complete  humanity. 
Neither  school  taught  the  whole  truth ;  neither  taught 
unmixed  error.  And  to  this  day  we  are  perplexed  to 
determine  the  limits  of  either  method;  or,  to  state 
the  problem  more  precisely,  to  separate  the  poetical 
and  didactic  elements  from  the  history  in  which  we 
find  them  imbedded. 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  137 

Turn  now  to  the  scholastic  theology  of  the  middle 
ages.  The  awakening  intellect  of  Europe  confronted 
by  the  demands  of  an  amazing  hierarchy  began  to 
consider  its  beliefs,  and  to  insist  upon  a  reconcilia- 
tion of  them  with  reason  and  conscience.  The  think- 
ers of  the  church,  men  like  Anselm  and  Abelard,  not 
only  appreciated  but  conquered  room  for  the  move- 
ments of  human  reason.  Anyone  familiar  with  the 
vulgar  and  even  repulsive  representations  of  Christ 
and  his  atonement  which  these  two  great  thinkers  set 
aside  is  glad  to  do  them  homage.  They  differed  in 
thought  and  speech  and  character.  Like  two  master 
builders  of  a  spiral  tunnel  through  the  Alps  or  the 
Rockies  they  approached  each  other  from  opposite 
sides  of  a  great  difficulty ;  yet  each  labored  to  make  a 
highway  for  faith  and  reason.  "I  understand  that  I 
may  believe,"  cried  the  one,  "I  believe  that  I  may 
understand,"  cried  the  other.  Cur  Beus  Homo  (Why 
did  God  become  a  man)  each  saw  to  be  the  funda- 
mental problem  of  the  Christian  faith,  and  each  pre- 
sented a  solution,  majestic  and  commanding.  Only  a 
shallow  thinker  ridicules  the  work  of  Anselm  or  sets 
over  against  the  grandeur  of  Abelard's  conception  of 
the  work  of  Christ,  his  bitter  controversy  with 
Bernard.  The  great  and  imperishable  faith  remains ; 
these  two  schoolmen  did  much  to  free  theology  from 
the  dead  body  of  superstition,  and  in  spite  of  their 
bondage  to  Augustinian  error  rose  to  the  height  of 
their  great  argument.  For  both  of  them  saw  this: 
the  work  of  Christ  had  its  origin  in  the  nature  of 


138  IN  MEMORIAM 

God,  and  according  to  one's  conception  of  the  Eternal 
Father  will  always  be  one's  conception  of  the  work  of 
His  Eternal  Son.  But  as  their  conceptions  of  Him 
differed,  so  did  their  conclusions.  We  later  thinkers 
are  at  liberty  to  reject  or  to  alter  or  to  combine  them 
as  superior  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  and  larger 
conceptions  of  the  problems,  and  less  beclouded  appre- 
hension of  the  Eternal  Father  may  require.  But  it 
betrays  an  unseemly,  nay,  a  very  culpable  ignorance 
of  the  primer  of  Historical  theology  to  treat  their 
conclusions  with  indifference,  or  to  speak  of  them 
with  disdain.  What  shall  we  say,  though,  of  those 
who  read  into  the  Scriptures  the  very  conclusions  of 
these  great  schoolmen,  while  their  mouths  are  filled 
with  denunciations  of  the  spirit  in  which  they  were 
reached  ? 

Once  more  we  have  reason  to  regret  the  perversity 
of  those  clothed  with  brief  authority.  It  was  not  the 
teachings  of  Anselm  or  of  Abelard  or  even  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  that  corrupted  the  medieval  church.  It  was 
the  wolfish  greed  for  wealth  and  power,  and  pleasure, 
that  fastened  ravenously  upon  their  defects.  "The 
Church  can  say  no  longer  silver  and  gold  have  I 
none,"  said  the  proud  pontiff  to  the  Angelic  Doctor. 
"Neither,"  replied  the  great  Thomas,  "Neither  can  the 
Church  say,  Rise  up  and  walk !"  Alas !  that  the  defects 
of  the  scholastic  theology  should  be  so  quickly  seized 
upon  by  pontifical  cunning  and  episcopal  subtlety  to 
defend  the  abuses  of  the  hierarchy,  and  that  its  nobler 
qualities  should  be  so  industriously  forgotten.     For 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  139 

the  student  of  Dante's  great  poem  recognizes  with 
Thomas  Carlyle  and  Richard  Church  and  with  the 
Italian  thinkers  of  our  own  century  how  vital  and 
powerful  were  the  essential  truths  of  that  medieval 
theology  when  married  to  the  music  of  a  poetic  and 
prophetic  mind.  Whether  it  be  the  awful  symbolism 
of  the  Inferno,  or  the  thrilling  pictures  of  the  toiling 
penitents,  climbing  in  slow  content  upwards  towards 
the  radiance  of  God,  or  the  marvelous  conversations 
of  the  Paradiso ;  everywhere  one  finds  some  fragments 
of  the  truth  that  saves. 

And  in  the  cantos  of  the  mighty  poem  that  later 
ages  called  divine,  one  hears  too  the  prolonged  echoes 
of  the  sobs  of  Jesus  weeping  over  the  New  Jerusalem. 
0,  that  thou  hadst  known  the  things  that  make  for 
thy  peace ! 

Dante  died  as  John  Wiclif  was  born.  What  be- 
came of  Dante's  contemporary,  Roger  Bacon,  who  can 
tell  ?  But  we  know  what  became  of  Wiclif,  the  Oxford 
scholar,  and  of  John  Hus,  the  professor  of  theology  at 
Prague.  Wiclif  was  harried  and  persecuted  and  de- 
graded from  office,  and  threatened  with  destruction. 
Nor  were  his  enemies  without  excuse  in  their  own 
eyes.  His  teachings  were  destructive  of  the  faith, 
they  said!  What  would  become  of  the  world  if  the 
sacraments  should  lose  their  saving  power?  If  the 
consecrated  wafer  were  reduced  to  the  mere  emblem 
of  a  fact?  If  it  ceased  to  be  the  efficacious  and  trans- 
forming and  preserving  mystical  body  of  the  Omnipo- 
tent Son  of  God?    And  to  whom  should  sorrowing 


140  IN  MEMORIAM 

and  stricken  women  and  children  repair  in  their 
misery  if  clouds  of  doubt  obscured  the  form  of  the 
Mother  of  Jesus  ? 

We  know,  too,  what  became  of  John  Hus.  A 
reforming  council  burnt  him  at  the  stake.  For  it  was 
easier  to  make  ashes  of  a  professor  of  theology  than  it 
was  to  cure  the  blood-poisoning  with  which  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  system  was  infected  and  infiltrated. 
Catholics  and  Protestants  alike  unite  now  to  condemn 
the  moral  and  spiritual  wickedness  of  that  age,  but 
neither  Catholic  nor  Protestant  has  yet  recognized 
their  necessary  connection  with  its  intellectual  tyr- 
rany.  Light  is  necessary  to  life.  It  is  indeed  im- 
possible to  pluck  the  sun  from  the  heavens,  but  it 
is  possible,  unfortunately,  to  pluck  out  the  eyes  of 
thinking  men,  or  to  doom  them  to  the  silence  of  the 
dungeon  or  the  grave.  And  thus  the  fifteenth  century 
which  might  have  ended  with  a  new  and  purified 
church  to  match  a  new  and  splendid  science  gave  us 
a  Borgia  to  bracket  with  a  Copernicus. 

"0  !  Lord,  Open  the  eyes  of  the  King  of  England !" 
Such  were  the  last  words  of  the  great  English  scholar, 
William  Tyndale,  to  whom  we  owe  so  many  of  the 
beauties  and  fidelities  of  our  English  version  of  the 
Bible.  But  Tyndale  was  only  one  of  a  large  and 
extraordinary  international  company  of  scholars; 
Linacre  and  Colet,  Erasmus  and  Reuchlin,  Luther, 
Melancthon,  Zwingli,  were  teachers,  all  of  them.  And 
the  Reformation  in  its  noblest  aspect  was  Biblical 
science  struggling  with  theological  tyranny.     I  am 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  141 

not  now  concerned  to  defend  their  position;  I  am 
satisfied  to  state  it.  They  appealed  to  the  Bible  and 
to  reason.  Luther's  reply  to  a  demand  for  a  retrac- 
tion was  an  either,  or.<  Convince  me  by  Scripture,  or 
convince  me  by  sound  reason.  And  in  that  eternal 
reply  we  hear  the  snapping  of  the  fetters  that  had  so 
long  hampered  the  human  intellect  in  the  study  of 
the  word  of  God.  In  that  reply,  moreover,  we  hear 
the  voice  of  the  scholars  of  the  future  eager  to  know 
the  Scriptures  in  all  their  history  and  in  all  their 
meaning. 

The  historian  is  not  an  apologist.  It  would  not 
become  me  to  defend  the  faults  of  Alexandria  or  of 
Antioch,  of  Augustine  or  Anselm,  of  Meister  Eckhart 
or  John  Wiclif;  and  years  of  study  have  made  me 
painfully  aware  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. Undoubtedly  the  chief  of  these  was  what  John 
Milton  described  as  old  priest  writ  large  into  new 
presbyter.  But  Milton's  description  was  inadequate, 
as  appeared  most  plainly  in  the  Arminian  struggle  in 
Holland.  That  tragic  conflict  in  which  Oldenbarnveld 
lost  his  life  and  Grotius  lost  his  liberty,  was  mixed 
with  political  ambitions  and  the  greed  for  dominion. 
The  serpent  is  subtle  above  all  the  beasts  of  the  field 
and  never  more  subtle  than  when  he  coils  himself 
around  the  souls  of  earnest  and  honest  men.  When 
saints  like  John  Robinson  are  inveigled  into  ecclesi- 
astical oppression,  it  must  be  that  Satan  has  appeared 
to  them  as  an  Angel  of  Light.  Arminius  was  a  theo- 
logical professor  at  Leyden;  so  were  his  most  distin- 


142  IN  MEMORIAM 

guished  followers.  Hugo  Grotius,  worthy  to  rank 
with  the  great  thinkers  of  all  time,  elaborated  the 
theory  of  the  Atonement  which  seemed  in  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  be  the  final  orthodox 
expression.  But  in  the  seventeenth  century  Armin- 
ianism  was  heresy  or  something  worse  both  in  Hol- 
land and  in  England.  One  of  the  famous  documents 
of  the  English  Eevolution  comprises  a  resolution  of 
the  House  of  Commons  in  which  popery  and  Armin- 
ianism  are  classed  together  in  the  same  phrase  as 
equally  detestable.  Arminius  and  his  disciples,  though, 
would  have  made  no  impression  upon-  thinking  men 
if  they  had  not  rejected  the  exegetical  methods  by 
which  the  Calvinistic  system  had  been  defended.  The 
breadth  and  boldness  of  Arminian  interpretation  of 
the  Bible  horrified  their  contemporary  antagonists; 
but  it  must  give  an  erudite  Calvinistic  theologian 
mixed  feelings  to  note  that  while  this  Arminian 
breadth  and  boldness  has  invaded  Scotland,  the  nar- 
rower methods  upon  which  depend  the  decrees  of 
Dort  and  the  decisions  of  Westminster  find  most 
ardent  adherents  in  supposedly  Arminian  circles. 

In  Germany,  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  the 
University  of  Halle  became  the  center  of  movements 
which,  though  bitterly  opposed  as  heretical  and  de- 
structive of  the  faith,  have  come  to  be  regarded  in 
our  time  with  enthusiastic  reverence,  and  which  in 
their  connection  with  the  Moravians,  profoundly 
affected  the  Wesleyan  revival.  You  will  be  surprised, 
I  fancy,  when  I  name  their  principles : 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  143 

Popular  study  of  the  Scriptures.  Missionary  activ- 
ity at  home  and  abroad.  The  relief  and  education  of 
the  poor  and  the  care  of  orphans.  Family  and  neigh- 
borhood prayer.  Preaching  to  the  heart  rather  than 
to  the  head.  Insistence  upon  newness  of  life  and  the 
fruits  of  faith. 

These  pietists  of  Halle  created  the  first  build- 
ing of  that  splendid  complex  of  schools  and  insti- 
tutions for  the  poor  which  today  adorns  one  sec- 
tion of  the  University  city.  They  established  in  1712 
the  first  society  for  the  distribution  of  the  Bible,  and, 
before  William  Carey  was  born,  they  sent  the  first 
Protestant  missionaries  of  Germany  to  preach  the 
gospel  in  East  India.  It  seems  to  us  who  build  into 
monuments  for  Spener  and  Francke  the  stones  flung 
at  them  by  their  brethren — it  seems  to  us  incredible 
that  they  should  have  been  suspected  and  ridiculed 
and  denounced  by  their  stiff  and  cold  and  barren 
orthodox  colleagues.  The  explanation  lies  partly  in 
their  own  mistakes  and  partly  in  the  habits  of  their 
antagonists.  The  Halle  pietists  were  always  noble  but 
not  always  wise;  their  opponents  were  sometimes 
noble  but  seldom  wise.  Criticism  and  collision  were 
inevitable. 

Now,  if  I  have  made  myself  understood,  two  things 
must  be  clear:  1.  The  forms  of  Christian  doctrine 
have  been  shaped  by  theological  schools.  2.  Each 
notable  change  of  form  has  been  vehemently  opposed 
and  has  got  itself  established  only  after  a  severe 
struggle. 


144  IN  MEMOEIAM 

And  while,  as  a  historian  and  a  disciple  of  Jesus, 
I  regret  the  bitterness  and  the  wickedness  that  have 
stained  this  strife,  the  conflict  of  opinions  I  do  not 
regret.  I,  for  one,  am  glad  that  giants  like  Leibnitz 
and  Huyghens  opposed  the  Newtonian  theories,  and 
compelled  the  production  of  invincible  proof.  I,  for 
one,  am  glad  that  every  theory  proposed  for  acceptance 
in  the  genuinely  scientific  world  must  be  subjected  by 
its  propounder  and  his  co-workers  to  the  severest  tests. 
The  wisdom  of  true  science,  like  the  wisdom  from 
above,  is  in  the  first  place  pure  and  in  the  second 
place  peaceable;  it  is  both  and  both  simultaneously. 
The  wisdom  that  is  not  pure  cannot  be  peaceable  and 
the  wisdom  that  is  not  peaceable  cannot  be  pure. 

No !  It  is  not  the  comparison  or  even  the  conflict 
of  opinions  that  the  historian  condemns.  He  sees 
that  truth  is  debtor  alike  to  the  defenders  of  the  old 
and  the  champions  of  the  new.  He  sees  that  God 
has  seldom  entrusted  a  great  message  or  a  sublime  dis- 
covery to  a  coward,  because  it  is  God's  order  that  mes- 
sages and  discovery  should  fight  their  way  to  better 
understanding  and  to  a  perfect  use.  All  who  have 
preceded  us  have  died  without  the  sight,  God  having 
provided  some  better  thing  for  us,  that  they  without 
us  should  not  be  made  perfect. 

In  my  boyhood  the  favorite  rhetorical  phrase  that 
glittered  in  every  speech  ran  thus:  "We  live  in  a 
marvelous  age."  Now  we  are  told  with  tiresome 
reiteration,  "We  live  in  an  age  of  transition."  Well ! 
So  did  Peter  and  John  and  Paul.    What  transition 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  145 

could  have  been  more  marvelous  than  that  which 
made  the  Scriptures  of  the  Israelites,  the  Bible  of 
the  world,  and  the  crucified  King  of  the  Jews,  the 
Savior  of  mankind  ?  We  live  in  an  age  of  transition. 
True,  indeed !  But  so  did  Constantine  and  Athana- 
sius  and  Julian  and  the  Gregories,  the  age  that  saw 
the  old-time  religion  of  the  Greek  and  Eoman  perish, 
and  all  the  gods  of  the  Mediterranean  region  fall 
down  moaning.  We  live  in  an  age  of  transition: 
Surely!  But  so  did  Luther  and  Zwingli,  and 
Tyndale  and  Latimer,  and  Calvin  and  Knox. 

The  wise  thing  is  to  detect  and  to  describe  the 
characteristics  of  the  transit  we  ourselves  are  mak- 
ing. Ours  is  often  described  as  the  age  of  science; 
but  the  part  is  here  again  put  for  the  whole.  Our  age 
is  an  age  of  construction  and  reconstruction.  So 
far  as  the  present  is  concerned  the  only  knowledge 
this  age  cares  for  is  the  knowledge  by  which  we  can 
construct,  whether  it  be  an  ocean  Leviathan  equipped 
for  wireless  communication  with  the  round  globe,  or 
some  massive  shelter  for  industrial  activities,  or  some 
new  commonwealth  erected  on  the  ruins  of  an  ancient 
tyranny.  Nay,  even  our  destructive  instruments  are 
marvels  of  constructive  ingenuity;  the  historian 
stands  aghast  as  he  watches  tbe  struggle  of  the  con- 
structive and  combining  spirit  with  the  surviving 
barbarism,  and  notes  how  even  science  is  seized  and 
utilized  and  enslaved  whenever  the  ancient  spirit  of 
destruction  wins  a  temporary  victory  over  the  archi- 
tectonic spirit  of  our  epoch. 


146  IN  MEMORIAM 

Such  a  spirit  working  among  the  accumulated  insti- 
tutions, and  traditions,  and  methods,  and  beliefs  of 
the  past  must  of  necessity  be  reconstructive  also. 
These  reconstructions  began  at  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  almost  simultaneously  in  the  political, 
industrial,  scientific,  and  historical  realms.  They 
were  attended  with  not  a  few  dangers  and  many 
calamities.  Such,  unfortunately,  is  the  course  of 
human  history.  So  it  was  when  the  Roman  Empire 
was  reconstructed ;  and  Christianity  was  not  the  least 
sufferer  in  that  tremendous  process.  So  it  was  in 
the  Reformation  centuries  which  were  stained  with 
miseries  and  mistakes.  How,  let  us  ask  bravely  and 
solemnly,  how  does  this  spirit  of  construction  and 
reconstruction  affect  our  theological  training?  Let 
me  reverse  the  order  and  speak  of  reconstruction 
first.  The  researches  in  physical  science,  geological 
and  biological  investigations,  sociological  and  psycho- 
logical inquiry  have  changed  the  face  of  the  universe 
and  the  countenance  of  man.  Neither  the  cosmos 
nor  humanity  are  to  the  thinkers  of  our  time  what 
they  were  to  Isaac  Newton  and  to  Richard  Baxter, 
much  less  what  they  were  to  Martin  Luther  and 
Philip  Melancthon.  But  we  theologians  are  con- 
stantly forgetting  that  the  doctrines  we  preach  have 
been  shaped  and  colored  by  the  successive  environ- 
ments through  which  they  came  to  us.  What  man 
has  added  to  the  truth  of  God,  man  must  take  away, 
once  he  has  discovered  to  a  certainty  its  human  origin. 
That  was  the  achievement  of  the  reformers  when  they 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  147 

demolished  the  treasury  of  merits,  that  purely  human 
addition  to  the  sepulchre  of  Jesus  Christ;  that  was 
the  achievement  of  the  Wesleys  when  they  scraped 
away  the  horrible  decrees  that  had  fastened  upon 
Paul's  glad  tidings  for  every  one  that  believeth.    And 
if  today  we  shall  discover  in  the  light  of  modern 
discovery  that  we  are  holding  as  essential  truth  any 
added  human  error  we  must  surrender  that  error  to 
Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  Truth.    It  is  impossible  for 
God  to  lie.     He  does  not  lie  to  us,  whether  we  use 
unaided  eyesight,  or  telescope,  or  microscope,  or  spec- 
troscope.    He  has  not  stained  the  rocks  with  false- 
hood or  the  structure  of  animals  with  deception.    It 
is  blasphemous  to  assert  that  the  world  he  has  given 
us  for  a  dwelling  place  is  a  labyrinth  of  fraud,  sure 
to  decoy  us  into  darkness  if  we  attempt  its  thorough 
exploration.    Our  business,  then,  as  theological  teach- 
ers is  to  relate  as  best  we  can  the  genuine  discoveries 
of  our  time  with  our  own  theories  purified  again  and 
again  by  prayerful  study  of  the  Word  of  God.     To 
recognize,  once  and  for  all,  that  the  Eternal  Truth 
is  never  self-contradictory,  that  if  He  seems  to  con- 
tradict Himself,  the  trouble  is  in  our  eyes  and  not 
in  His  light,  in  the  infinite  movements  of  our  puny 
minds,  not  in  the  tremendous  sweep  of  His  amazing 
revelations. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  purification  and  reconstruction 
of  our  inherited  theories  is  only  an  incident  of  our 
sublime  endeavor.  Construction  is  the  watchword  of 
our  age.    It  is  shouted  on  every  side  of  us;  it  is  the 


148  IN  MEMORIAM 

flag  unfurled  by  each  company  that  attempts  con- 
quest of  present  powers  and  the  control  of  the  future. 
It  is  a  proper  watchword;  it  is  a  divine  watchword. 
"Come,  let  us  make  man  in  our  own  image,"  said  the 
Father  Almighty,  maker  of  heaven  and  earth.  "If 
any  man  is  in  Christ  he  is  a  new  creature,"  said  the 
great  Apostle  of  the  Eedeemer  of  the  World.  Our 
theories,  improve  them  how  we  may,  have  value  only 
as  they  save  souls,  and  homes  and  communities;  only 
as  they  destroy  saloons,  and  brothels,  abolish  wanton- 
ness, and  greed,  and  graft;  only  as  they  make  men 
love  truth  and  hate  lies,  only  as  they  make  men  do 
justice  and  love  mercy  and  walk  humbly  with  their 
God. 

"Show  us  what  you  can  do!"  is  the  cry  of  our 
time.  "See  what  we  have  done  and  what  we  are 
doing,"  is  the  answer  from  the  physical  and  biological 
laboratory.  "See  the  streams  of  fire  that  flash  out 
under  the  rolling  wheels,  look  at  these  photographs 
of  invisible  solar  and  stellar  wonders,  or  these  of 
diseases  in  the  inward  parts  of  man,  listen  to  familiar 
voices  calling  you  from  far-off  cities,  summon  with 
electric  buttons  powers  more  amazing  than  any  that 
answered  to  Aladdin's  lamp."  Thus  speaks  the 
physicist  from  his  laboratory.  "See  what  we  are 
doing,"  exclaims  the  biologist.  "We  are  exploring  the 
secrets  of  disease  and  the  constructive  energies  of 
life.  We  are  conquering  diphtheria  and  hydrophobia, 
and  the  pestilence  that  walketh  at  noon-day.  We 
have  tracked  the  infinitesimal  breeders  of  death  to 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  149 

their  hiding  places  in  the  human  body,  and  even  the 
causes  of  mental  misery  to  their  lodgments  in  the 
human  brain.  All  this  has  come  from  our  study  and 
courageous  thinking.  Now,  prophets  of  Jesus,  show 
us  your  miracles.  These  are  works  of  natural  power ; 
surpass  them  if  you  can,  ye  that  claim  the  presence 
and  the  power  of  the  supernatural." 

Brethren,  the  minister  of  Christ  in  the  twentieth 
century  must  accept  the  challenge.  And  he  must  be 
trained  to  victory.  He  must  recognize,  once  for  all, 
that  the  only  evidence  that  he  is  the  servant  of  the 
supernatural,  is  supernatural  result.  But  he  must  rec- 
ognize also  that  the  supernatural  Christ  works  always 
in  the  natural  world.  The  incarnation  is  the  eternal 
assumption  of  humanity;  Christ  belongs  to  this 
world;  this  is  the  place  of  his  achievement.  His 
ministers,  therefore,  must  be  clothed  with  power  as 
with  a  garment.  It  is  for  them  to  bring  to  the  minds 
and  hearts  of  this  generation  redeeming  and  trans- 
forming grace  so  that  the  enormous  forces  of  the 
modern  world  may  become  the  instrument  of  right- 
eousness. The  ancient  prophets  predicted  the  time 
when,  on  the  bells  of  the  horses  should  be  in- 
scribed "holiness  to  the  Lord."  The  minister  of 
the  future  must  predict  and  help  accomplish  the 
prediction  that  dredge  and  dynamo,  mill-wheel 
and  steamship  screw,  all  the  complex  contrivances 
of  our  modern  civilization  shall  bear  not  to  the 
eye  of  man,  but  in  the  sight  of  God,  a  like 
inscription.     This  means  that  the  minister  of  the 


150  IN  MEMORIAM 

future  shall  know  his  age  and  his  community;  that 
his  thought  shall  be  long  and  his  speech  short  and 
quick  and  powerful;  that  he  shall  have  that  kind  of 
strength  that  comes  by  prayer  and  self-denial,  and 
by  complete  abandonment  to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow 
men.  He  is  to  preach  the  power  of  the  living  Christ, 
but  he  is  personally  to  show  how  that  power  works. 
He  is  to  demonstrate  the  wisdom  of  God;  as  Faraday 
demonstrated  physical  truth  by  astonishing  perform- 
ance. And  demonstrating  the  truth  of  God  in  his 
own  life,  he  is  to  proclaim  it  with  the  confidence  of 
glorious  verification  to  his  fellow-men.  He  must 
expect  opposition.  Who  of  the  creators  of  the  modern 
world  has  not  been  baffled  and  ridiculed  until  he 
triumphed?  Wisdom  is  justified  by  her  children. 
The  minister  of  the  future  must  be  justified  by  souls 
redeemed  from  meanness  and  mendacity,  from  lust 
and  wantonness,  from  greed  and  pride  and  hypocrisy ; 
souls  redeemed  to  daily  righteousness  and  brotherly 
kindness,  to  ministries  of  love  and  to  missionary  zeal. 
He  must  be  justified  by  homes  made  permanent  in 
prospect  of  immortal  union,  homes  in  which  the  chil- 
dren are  twice  born,  knowing  chiefly  this  about  each 
birth,  that  they  are  abundantly  and  eternally  alive. 
He  must  be  justified  by  communities  in  which  each 
man's  welfare  is  becoming  all  men's  purpose,  by 
commonwealths  whose  ordinances,  both  in  their  utter- 
ance and  their  execution,  vindicate  the  glorious  saying 
of  Kichard  Hooker  that  "of  law  no  less  can  be  said 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  151 

than  that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God  and  her  voice 
the  harmony  of  the  world."  He  must  be  justified 
by  a  science  which  shall  seek  always  first  the  better- 
ment of  man's  estate  and  by  an  art  which  shall  illu- 
minate and  transfigure  all  that  is  beautiful  in  human 
history,  and  all  that  is  glorious  in  human  ideals.  The 
roar  of  the  sea,  said  Leibnitz,  is  the  accumulated 
sound  of  the  separate  waves  that  mortal  ears  cannot 
distinguish.  The  murmur  that  reaches  us  from  yon- 
der city  is  the  accumulated  beatings  of  millions  of 
human  hearts,  the  polyglot  voice  of  millions  of  souls 
eager  for  life  and  eager  for  it  now.  Often  as  I  listen  to 
it  I  strive  to  analyze  it  into  its  separate  meanings  of 
misery  and  joy,  of  hate  and  love,  of  weakness  and  of 
power,  of  aspiration  and  despair,  until  it  swells  in 
my  imagination  to  the  voice  of  the  whole  world  whose 
outcry  brought  to  Bethlehem  the  Son  of  the  Living 
God. 

It  was  to  realize  His  Kingdom  that  this  school 
was  founded.  The  woman  who  established  it,  the 
teachers  who  informed  it  with  their  eager  and  con- 
fident faith,  the  noble  men  and  women  who  enriched 
it  by  their  beneficent  and  sanctified  intelligence  had 
their  eyes  touched  with  prophetic  wisdom.  They  fore- 
saw the  greatness  of  this  city  on  the  lake,  they  antici- 
pated the  multitudes  of  the  Northwest  and  planned 
for  a  ministry  equal  to  the  opportunities  and  the 
necessities  of  a  civilization  vaster  and  more  complex 
than    they   had    ever   known.      They    planned    and 


152  IN  MEMORIAM 

executed  wisely.  "We  are  in  the  midst  of  what  they 
foresaw  and  heirs  to  their  achievement,  and  our  best 
praise  of  them  will  be  to  greet  our  opportunities  and 
to  perform  our  duties  in  the  same  faith  in  which  they 
wrought.  The  Lord's  hand  is  not  shortened  that  He 
cannot  save.  And  He  has  surely  provided  some  better 
thing  for  us,  that  they  without  us  may  not  be  made 
perfect. 


THE  SERENITY  AND  BREADTH 
OE  CHRISTIAN  THINKING 


THE  SERENITY  AND  BREADTH  OF 
CHRISTIAN  THINKING* 

"And  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing shall  guard  your  hearts  and  thoughts  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things 
are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honorable,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatso- 
ever things  are  of  good  report,  if  there  be  any  virtue, 
and  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on  these  things." — 
Phil.  iv:7,  8. 

PHILIPPI  is  now  a  ruin  only  and  a  name.  But 
the  Macedonian  king  who  built  it,  and  his  greater 
son,  Alexander,  are  still  a  power  in  the  earth.  The 
Latin  inscriptions  yet  legible  upon  the  shattered  gate- 
ways, the  fragments  of  yonder  theater  far  up  the 
hillside,  bear  witness  of  the  imperial  majesty  to  which 
the  freeborn  Roman  citizen  of  Tarsus  once  appealed; 
for  here  by  these  ancient  fountains,  by  these  exhausted 
gold  mines,  the  eagles  of  Jupiter  deserted  to  the 
standards  of  Octavian,  and  Brutus  perished  fighting 
for  the  shadow  of  what  never  could  be  again.  Com- 
monwealth and  empire  both  are  ruins  now.    Yet  the 


'Baccalaureate  sermon  delivered  in  First  M.  E.  Church, 
Evanston,  Illinois,  May  1,  1892,  for  the  Graduating  Class 
of  1892,  Garrett  Biblical  Institute. 
155 


156  IN  MEMORIAM 

spirit  of  law,  the  instinct  of  far-reaching  organization, 
of  which  the  empire  was  the  symbol  and  the  source, 
remain  the  life  of  all  political  progress. 

The  church  at  Philippi  has  vanished,  too.  There 
are  no  more  Euodias  and  Syntyches  to  be  reconciled, 
there  is  no  Epaphroditus  now  to  pour  forth  his  life 
in  eager  service,  no  loving  disciples  to  share  their 
treasures  with  their  father  in  the  gospel.  The  spot 
where  Paul  and  Silas  sang  their  midnight  praises  is 
quiet  enough  now.  The  walls  within  which  the 
brethren  listened  breathless  to  the  letters  of  Paul  and 
Polycarp  have  crumbled  into  silence.  "No  voice  nor 
solemn  sound,  in  all  the  earth  around."  And  yet, 
how  powerful  the  shadow,  how  resonant  the  echo  of 
that  early  time!  For  although,  as  Lightfoot  says, 
the  church  of  Philippi  has  lived  without  a  history, 
and  perished  without  a  memorial,  yet  the  glow  and  the 
beauty  of  the  faith  and  fellowship,  which  gleam 
reflected  in  the  letter  of  the  Roman  prisoner  Paul, 
the  outburst  of  affection  that  glorifies  his  captivity, 
and  their  thoughtful  generosity  are  a  treasure,  an 
inspiration,  an  imperishable  lesson  for  the  church  in 
every  age. 

But  the  anxiety  of  Paul  was  only  too  well  founded 
— the  fear  that  his  fellow-laborers  at  Philippi  were 
ceasing  to  be  of  one  mind.  Where  Greek  influence 
was  dominant  intellect  overtopped  everything,  and  the 
exceptional  place  of  women  in  Macedonian  society 
made  the  play  of  thought  at  Philippi  both  eager  and 
exciting.      One   can   easily   fancy   that   there,   more 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  157 

even  than  at  Corinth  or  at  Ephesus,  the  exact  relation 
of  the  gospel  to  inherited  ideas  and  current  philoso- 
phies was  a  topic  of  frequent  and  ardent  discussion. 
So  that  in  the  vehemence  of  controversy,  in  the  desire 
for  vainglory,  in  the  passion  for  intellectual  display, 
they  had  forgotten  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
peace  of  God  which  passeth  every  understanding.  In 
their  zeal  to  out-argue  and  out-talk  each  other,  they 
had  forgotten  the  real  goal  of  all  mental  effort  in 
human  society;  to-wit,  the  co-operative  discovery  of 
the  truth,  the  beauty,  and  the  power  of  God.  Accord- 
ingly, without  narrowing  in  the  least  the  circle  of 
their  thoughts,  Paul  points  out  to  his  beloved  disciples 
the  only  medium  in  which  the  intellect  can  really 
achieve  its  perfect  work.  The  peace  of  God  which 
passeth  all  understanding  must  surround  their  hearts 
and  minds  in  Jesus  Christ.  This  peace,  this  atmos- 
phere of  concord,  more  wonderful,  more  precious  than 
all  their  thinkings,  is  the  breath  of  the  wider  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  life.  Inspired  with  the  candor 
and  the  calmness  of  God,  they  might  continue,  he 
told  them,  their  eager  quest  of  all  that  exalts  and 
strengthens  human  intelligence,  and  of  all  that  adorns 
human  existence;  they  might  give  every  faculty  the 
widest  range  and  largest  liberty. 

Well,  brethren,  in  nineteen  centuries  the  forces  of 
contention  have  proved  mightier  than  the  peace  of 
God.  Christendom  today  is  not  only  complex  and 
diversified ;  Christendom,  alas !  is  also  divided  and  dis- 
cordant.   For  these  divisions  are  not  those  of  a  well- 


158  IN  MEMORIAM 

ordered  household  where  all  are  united  in  harmonious 
activity  under  a  common  roof ;  nor  those  of  an  indus- 
trial multitude  where  division  is  the  beginning  of 
co-operation;  where  the  final  product  is  the  outcome 
of  intelligently  distributed  and  concordant  labor.  But 
they  are  the  divisions  of  disorganized  energy,  of 
mutual  hindrance,  of  bewilderment  and  collision,  of 
inharmonious  purpose  and  conflicting  principles. 

Now,  surely  there  is  only  one  gospel  and  only  one 
Christ.  Hence  you  will  be  challenged  by  believers 
and  by  unbelievers  to  justify  your  separate  existence, 
and  to  make  plain  the  historic  basis  of  your  belief. 
Before,  then,  you  enter  into  this  Christendom  of 
conflict  and  confusion,  may  it  not  be  well  for  you  to 
implore  that  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing, to  keep  your  minds  and  hearts  in  Christ 
Jesus?  Tempted  as  you  will  be,  not  only  to  strife, 
but  to  ignorance,  to  narrowness  of  view,  to  traditional 
prejudice  and  local  bias,  may  it  not  be  wise  and 
helpful  for  you  to  take  in  at  the  outset  the  breadth 
and  freedom,  the  depth  and  daring,  of  this  great 
charter  of  Christian  intelligence. 

There  is,  I  know,  a  fond  idea  among  many  preachers 
that  they  may  set  aside  the  challenge  to  justify  their 
conception  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that,  by  confining 
themselves  in  thought  and  speech  to  truths  of  vital 
experience,  they  may  live  without  any  knowledge  of 
the  past  as  easily  as  an  engineer  guides  his  locomotive 
without  a  knowledge  of  the  development  of  the  steam 
engine. 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  159 

Few  men,  I  venture  to  say,  have  genius  and  grace 
enough  for  such  an  enterprise.  What  seems  so  easy 
is  a  task  of  tremendous  difficulty.  For  it  requires  the 
highest  genius  and  the  richest  grace  to  separate  vital 
and  necessary  truth  from  inherited  tradition  and  cur- 
rent prejudice,  from  the  errors  you  have  unconsciously 
absorbed,  from  the  vagaries  of  your  own  mind  or 
your  own  neighborhood,  from  the  suggestions  of  sud- 
den excitement,  from  the  ideas  and  passions  of  the 
society  and  the  age  in  which  you  live.  A  comparison 
of  what  good  men  at  different  times  have  deemed 
essential  to  salvation ;  nay,  a  comparison  of  what  good 
men  and  women  even  now  deem  necessary  to  eternal 
life,  is  both  perplexing  and  disheartening.  And  surely 
I  do  you  no  wrong  when  I  tell  you  that  you  have  not 
the  genius  or  the  inspiration  to  separate  intuitively 
the  pure  truth  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  alloy  and  the 
adulteration  of  human  error  so  persistently  mixed 
with  it,  and  that  you  have  hardly  the  grace  to  keep 
yourselves,  without  earnest  and  candid  study,  from 
traditional  perversions  and  popular  accommodations 
of  the  gospel. 

Attempts  to  preach  exclusively  one's  own  experi- 
ence, uncorrected,  unilluminated,  unenlarged  by  his- 
torical study,  frequently  result  in  a  gospel  of  odds 
and  ends,  in  a  mixture  of  traditional  beliefs,  personal 
speculations  and  current  superstition,  where  the  truth 
of  Christ  is  neutralized  by  the  poison  of  individual 
and  popular  falsehood.  Monasticism  and  Mahomet- 
anism  were  both  the  outcome  of  personal  experience. 


160  IN  MEMOEIAM 

Each  was  a  defiance  of  historic  evidence;  each  origi- 
nated in  this  overweening  confidence  of  men  in  their 
own  impulses  and  their  own  emotions ;  in  the  separa- 
tion of  the  individual  experience  from  the  Life  and 
Light  of  the  world.  And  what  havoc  both  have  made ! 
— the  one  by  its  fatalism,  the  other  by  its  degradation 
of  the  early  Christian  ideal.  That  ideal  was  social 
and  fraternal ;  a  community  of  expectant  souls,  train- 
ing themselves  beforehand  in  the  citizenship  of  the 
commonwealth  of  God.  How  pitiful  the  solitary, 
sordid  conception  of  holiness  which,  originating  in 
Upper  Egypt,  overshadowed  and  corrupted  it.  No! 
brethren,  cling  to  your  own  experience  of  Jesus 
Christ;  but  do  not  measure  the  fulness  of  Jesus 
Christ  by  your  own  first  experience.  He  is  too  large 
to  be  compassed  by  one  mind,  or  one  generation. 
Men  and  centuries  are  too  full  of  error  and  of  evil, 
of  ignorance  and  vain  imaginations,  of  haughty  con- 
ceits and  bold  speculations,  to  comprehend  Christ 
without  distortion  and  without  defect.  Hence  he  has 
been  crucified  afresh  in  every  epoch;  there  has  never 
yet  been  room  enough  for  him  in  the  mind  and  heart 
of  humanity.  To  accept  your  own  limited  experience 
for  a  complete  conception  of  Jesus  Christ  is  to  behave 
like  the  fool  in  the  fable  who  boasted  that  he  could 
carry  home  the  sun  in  his  bucket  of  water;  you  mis- 
take the  flash  of  light  in  your  own  soul  for  the  stu- 
pendous glory  of  the  Son  of  God.  He  is,  I  repeat, 
too  large  to  be  measured  by  a  single  mind,  albeit  the 
mind  of  Origen  or  Augustine,  of  Thomas  Aquinas 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  161 

or  of  Calvin,  of  Wesley  or  of  Edwards;  too  large, 
indeed,  to  be  measured  by  all  of  them  together;  too 
massive  in  his  influence  upon  human  souls  and  human 
society;  too  mysterious  in  the  depths  of  his  being, 
the  implications  of  his  history,  the  intricacy  of  his 
relations  to  the  movements  of  mankind;  too  thrill- 
ingly  responsive  to  every  phase  of  human  develop- 
ment; too  luminously  instructive  in  every  emergency 
of  human  progress. 

Experience  and  experiment  are  words  of  the  same 
root.  Now  what  would  become  of  science  (I  speak 
not  simply  of  its  theories,  but  of  its  power)  did  each 
explorer  bound  the  kingdom  of  knowledge  by  the  four 
walls  of  his  own  laboratory,  did  each  investigator 
reject  every  experiment  and  every  observation  outside 
his  own  narrow  activity?  No!  In  the  realm  of 
science  candor  and  co-operation  have  been  the  hidings 
of  power.  The  thinkers  of  today  glory  in  their  inher- 
itance, and  keep  alive  the  thought  of  Newton  and 
Lavoisier,  of  Galileo  and  of  Volta,  by  repetition  of 
their  experiments  and  new  departures  from  their  dis- 
coveries. As  the  peace  of  God  keeps  their  minds  and 
hearts  faithful  to  the  facts  of  nature  and  in  the 
harmony  of  intellectual  brotherhood,  knowledge  mul- 
tiplies, and  power  flashes,  from  their  thoughts.  Will 
Christians  never  learn  to  enter  upon  their  inheritance 
of  spiritual  achievement  and  of  earnest  gropings  after 
God  in  the  same  energetic  confidence  of  further  dis- 
covery and  future  victory?  Behind  us  stretch  nine- 
teen centuries  of  Christian  experience,  of  the  life  of 


162  IN  MEMORIAM 

Jesus  Christ  among  Jews  and  Greeks  and  Romans, 
in  the  midst  of  crumbling  empires  and  rising  democ- 
racies, of  exhausted  philosophies  and  triumphant 
sciences,  of  social  upheavals,  political  revolutions, 
moral  despair,  Utopian  expectation,  intellectual  trans- 
formation !  In  all  these  years  of  struggle  with  idola- 
tries and  superstition,  with  social  defect  and  organ- 
ized brutality,  with  multiplied  error  and  manifold 
sin,  with  wild  conceits  and  barbarous  enthusiasms, 
with  the  backward  drift  of  humanity  which  makes  the 
redemption  of  the  individual  and  of  society  so  appal- 
lingly difficult  and  so  painfully  unstable,  is  there 
really  nothing  to  be  learned  ?  Is  the  image  of  Christ 
that  we  embrace  so  true  to  the  original;  are  the 
maxims  of  conduct  that  shape  our  lives  such  perfect 
copies  of  his  code;  are  our  conceptions  of  his  nature 
and  his  work  so  free  from  distortion  and  delusion, 
that  all  these  years  of  thought  and  trial,  of  wander- 
ing and  strife,  and  aspiration  and  achievement,  can 
serve  us  neither  for  warning  nor  for  help? 

But,  you  suggest,  have  we  not  the  Bible?  May  we 
not,  interpreting  our  experience  in  the  light  of  holy 
writ,  learn  all  we  need  to  know?  Brethren,  the 
moment  you  reach  the  Scriptures  you  are  on  historic 
ground.  The  Bible  is  not  like  the  Koran,  the  product 
of  one  man ;  it  is  the  outcome  of  an  amazing  national 
existence.  Centuries  of  marvelous  inspiration  stretch 
from  Moses  to  St.  John.  And  between  the  Scriptures 
and  ourselves  intervene  nineteen  centuries  of  human 
interpretation  and  speculation.    The  astronomers  tell 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  163 

us  that  the  planet  Venus  is  surrounded  day  and  night 
by  clouds."  If  there  are  intelligent  beings  there  fash- 
ioned like  ourselves,  they  never  saw  the  sun.  They 
never  saw  the  starry  firmament.  They  have  reasoned, 
perhaps,  to  the  existence  of  a  great  luminary  outside 
their  world;  they  have  possibly  seen  in  their  atmos- 
phere bursts  of  strange  splendor,  and  constructed  for 
themselves  theories  of  an  outside  universe,  mysterious 
and  grand.  But  one  dispersion  of  their  cloud-land 
would  sweep  their  science  into  the  oblivion  of  a  glori- 
ous sunshine.  Just  such  a  dispersion  of  the  clouds  of 
speculation  was  the  Reformation.  Under  the  glorious 
compulsion  of  a  burst  of  light  the  intervening  screens 
were  swept  away.  But  only  for  a  season,  for  their 
nature  is  always  to  return,  the  sources  of  them  being 
not  in  the  Light  of  the  World,  but  in  the  recesses  of 
human  pride  and  human  imagination.  Hence,  if  you 
purpose  to  enlarge  and  illuminate  your  own  expe- 
rience with  the  word  of  God,  be  sure  that  you  take 
that  word  in  its  purity,  not  as  it  has  been  refracted 
and  distorted  by  intervening  controversies,  or  by 
unscriptural  and  unnatural  modes  of  interpretation. 

But  you  may  suggest  another  short  method  of 
making  good  your  claim  to  speak  for  Jesus  Christ. 
You  may  say  I  am  a  member  of  a  religious  body ;  its 
doctrines  I  believe  most  firmly,  and  it  is  enough  for 
me  to  be  stubbornly  loyal  to  the  system  which  I  have 
accepted,  and  to  which  I  give  my  mind  and  heart. 

Ignatius  Loyola  is  perhaps  the  finest  instance  of 
such  procedure,  and  certainly  there  is  a  power  in  it 


164  IN  MEMORIAM 

not  to  be  despised.  Never  to  question  the  correctness 
or  the  value  of  the  system  to  which  you  belong,  to 
accept  it  just  as  it  is,  seeking  only  to  get  the  utter- 
most result  of  it,  devoting  your  energy  of  mind  and 
will  to  its  extension  and  its  triumph,  will  test  alike 
the  system  and  yourself.  Only  this,  too,  requires 
uncommon  genius  and  grace.  Of  course,  to  compre- 
hend the  workings  of  a  system  sufficiently  to  see  how 
it  may  be  used  for  one's  own  behoof  is  not  so  very 
difficult.  That  is  the  problem  of  the  practical  poli- 
tician, and  requires  neither  genius  nor  piety.  But 
so  to  seize  the  spirit  of  a  system  and  the  law  of  its 
development  as  to  detect  at  once  all  tendencies  to 
disorder  and  decay;  so  to  understand  its  relation  to 
existing  circumstances  as  to  T^eep  it  not  only  alive  but 
powerful  and  fruitful;  so  to  share  the  divine  purpose 
in  which  it  originated  as  to  resist  unto  blood  every 
diversion  of  its  energy  to  improper  uses ;  never  to  mis- 
take its  excrescences  for  growth,  the  fevers  and  excite- 
ments of  the  present  hour  for  the  essential  workings 
of  its  primal  impulse;  all  this  requires  a  powerful 
intellect,  a  mental  intrepidity,  and  a  moral  courage 
quite  too  seldom  found  in  this  world.  It  is  easy  to 
say  "I  am  a  Catholic,"  "I  am  an  Independent,"  "I 
am  a  Presbyterian,"  "I  am  a  Methodist."  Too  often 
that  means  only,  "I  will  be  the  organization.  I  will 
shape  it  to  my  own  image  and  purpose;  I  will  make 
it  the  creature  of  my  thought  and  will;  I  will  yield 
to  its  movements  as  the  vessel  does  to  the  waters  and 
the  winds ;  mighty  as  their  movements  are,  they  shall 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  165 

guide  me  to  my  chosen  harbor !"  And  how  few  who 
abandon  themselves  in  absolute  devotion  to  an  organ- 
ization of  any  kind  escape  this  ever-present  tempta- 
tion. God  is  a  jealous  God !  He  punishes  any  form 
of  idolatry  with  destruction  from  His  presence.  Be 
slow,  therefore,  to  believe  that  you  have  either  the 
political  or  the  spiritual  genius  to  grasp  the  divine 
significance  and  purpose  of  your  organization  without 
a  study  of  its  origin  and  development.  Beware,  too, 
of  confounding  the  Methodism  of  your  native  village 
with  the  great  historic  movement  which  has  swept 
around  the  world.  And  be  you  ever  so  humble  and 
ever  so  wise,  how  will  you  escape  the  fiction-monger 
who  comes  to  flatter  you  with  his  legends,  and  the 
controversialists  with  their  suppressions  and  their 
combinations,  their  cunning  reconstructions  of  a  past 
that  never  was  present,  their  pictures  of  men  and 
women  who  never  drew  the  breath  of  life? 

But,  brethren,  ask  yourselves  this  question:  Do 
these  words  of  St.  Paul  in  this  magnificent  charter  of 
Christian  thought,  does  the  recorded  practice  of  St. 
Paul  warrant  any  preacher  of  Jesus  Christ  in  such  a 
life  of  intellectual  narrowness  and  denominational 
isolation,  in  such  perpetual  repetition  of  one's  own 
first  experience,  or  such  an  absolute  abandonment  to 
the  traditions  of  one's  childhood  and  to  the  system 
in  which  one  happens  to  be  born  ?  Paul  found  him- 
self face  to  face  with  Jew  and  Gentile  both.  The  Jew 
demanding  of  him  reasons  for  his  daring  innovations 
upon  the  ancient  faith,  even  the  Jewish  Christian 


166  IN  MEMORIAM 

looking  on  astonished  and  perplexed;  the  Gentile,  on 
the  other  hand,  challenging  him  to  demonstrations  of 
his  wisdom  and  his  power!  In  our  age,  which 
resembles  the  apostolic  age  much  more  than  we  are 
wont  to  imagine,  the  preacher  of  Jesus  is  compelled 
to  reckon  with  the  other  forms  of  his  own  belief,  com- 
pelled, too,  to  reckon  with  all  beliefs  and  the  philoso- 
phies, the  skepticisms  and  tendencies  of  the  world 
outside  his  own  experience.  From  both  sides  there 
will  be  pressed  upon  him  the  question:  How  came 
your  particular  form  of  faith  to  have  a  being  and  a 
place  in  the  complex  scheme  of  human  society  ?  And 
let  him  not  think  to  suppress  or  to  evade  the  inquiry. 
Our  age  is  getting  to  be  fiercely  earnest  on  these  mat- 
ters. Rich  as  may  be  your  personal  experience,  per- 
suasive as  may  be  your  appeals  to  come  to  the  waters 
of  life,  your  fellow  men  will  hold  you  firmly  to  the 
mental  horizon  of  your  time ;  they  will  not  suffer  you 
to  escape  in  nebulous  phrases;  they  will  compel  you 
to  answer  plainly  touching  your  right  and  authority 
to  speak  for  Jesus  Christ.  Somehow  your  experience 
of  the  ever-living  Jesus  must  be  connected  with  the 
historic  manifestations  of  him  and  his  disciples 
through  the  centuries.  You  will  be  required  to  show, 
as  your  fathers  were  not  required  to  show  (for  their 
environment  was  wholly  protestant),  you  will  be 
required  to  show  just  how  your  experience  of  Christ 
is  related  to  the  experience  of  your  contemporaries, 
and  how  both  you  and  they  are  related  to  the  whole 
communion  of  saints. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  167 

Now,  of  course,  you  may  make  this  explanation 
easy  by  accepting  or  inventing  fiction ;  the  world  of 
fable  and  of  legend  is  always  close  at  hand,  and  its 
gates  are  open  night  and  day.  You  may  construct  a 
legendary  Methodism,  a  legendary  Protestantism,  a 
legendary  Christendom,  as  the  emergencies  of  con- 
troversy may  require.  But  in  that  case  you  will  not 
justify  your  own  form  of  faith  and  worship ;  neither 
will  you  explain  the  divided  and  distracted  state  of 
the  religious  world;  nor  will  you  contribute  the  least 
impulse  to  the  unity  of  believers;  saddest  of  all,  you 
will  not  offer  to  the  candid  inquirer  the  faintest 
explanation  of  this  bewildering  and  discordant  Christ- 
endom from  which  he  fears  the  Prince  of  Peace  has 
long  ago  departed.  For  just  this  disposition  of  men 
to  reshape  the  historic  Christ  to  meet  the  exigencies 
of  some  existing  quarrel,  just  this  disposition  to 
restate  the  meaning  of  his  life  according  to  their  own 
minds  or  the  needs  of  their  own  systems,  and  to  rein- 
terpret prophet  and  apostle  after  their  own  thought, 
and  the  needs  of  their  own  party  and  their  own 
locality — just  this  disposition  to  substitute  fable  for 
fact,  and  gloss  for  text,  has  been  the  fruitful  cause 
of  all  this  delusion  and  confusion.  While  Christianity 
has  been  reshaping  the  world,  the  world  has  been 
dividing  and  reshaping  it.  Greek  philosophy  and 
oriental  speculation,  Roman  life  and  Teutonic  energy, 
Slavonic  patience  and  Celtic  excitability  have  all  felt 
its  power,  but  they  in  turn  have  recast  it  to  their 
natures,  adapting  it  to  the  law  of  their  minds,  and 


168  IN  MEMOEIAM 

of  their  social  progress.  For  the  gospel  is  not  the 
lump,  it  is  the  leaven.  It  must  work  amid  such  sur- 
roundings as  exist,  and  suffers  from  contact  with  so 
much  error  and  superstition,  so  many  perverse  and 
sinful  tendencies.  And  this  unconscious  transforma- 
tion of  the  gospel  which  has  taken  place  under  the 
pressure  of  each  new  environment,  of  each  new  epoch, 
has  been  further  marked  by  individual  surprises. 
Master  spirits  have  appeared  in  the  church,  swift 
logicians,  fiery  mystics,  daring  system-builders,  bold 
critics,  far-sighted  organizers,  subtle  and  passionate 
thinkers,  poets,  politicians,  philosophers.  In  these  we 
can  see  the  gospel  changing  visibly  and  palpably 
before  our  eyes.  The  gospel  of  Origen,  of  Augustine, 
of  Anselm,  of  Dante,  of  Hildebrand,  of  Master  Eck- 
hart,  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  of  Luther,  of  Wesley,  of 
Pascal,  of  Newman,  how  unlike  they  are!  How 
different  in  statement ;  how  different,  too,  in  substance 
and  effect. 

Now  if  you  are  ignorant  of  this,  if  you  do  not  trace 
out  for  yourself  the  genesis  of  religious  systems,  the 
origin  of  these  ecclesiastical  and  doctrinal  varieties, 
you  will  be  at  the  mercy  of  every  fiction-monger  who 
assails  you  with  his  legends.  For  there  are  two  kinds 
of  ignorance,  the  learned  and  the  unlearned.  The 
one  kind  simply  does  not  know,  the  other  knows,  but 
knows  all  wrong.  The  one  kind  is  the  healthy  dark- 
ness of  outdoors;  the  other  is  the  darkness  of 
the  cavern  with  its  damp  and  poisonous  air.  The 
one  is  often  humble,  slow  to  speak,  eager  to  learn. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  169 

The  other  is  full  of  arrogance  and  babble,  glorious  in 
parade  and  subtlety,  powerful  in  assertion  and  appeals 
to  prejudice.  To  this  persistent  and  pretentious 
ignorance  the  monuments  and  documents  of  the  past 
are  of  value,  not  for  what  they  plainly  reveal,  but  for 
what  they  can  be  made  to  yield  by  logical  torture  in 
support  of  the  dignity  and  power  of  existing  interests. 
New  Testament  canon,  Nicene  symbol,  the  Teaching 
of  the  Twelve,  apocrypha  or  apology,  Westminster 
confession  or  Methodist  discipline,  apostles,  fathers, 
saints,  schoolmen,  reformers,  heretics,  all  are  exploited 
or  suppressed  with  the  same  uncanny  and  uncandid 
eagerness.  How  far  is  all  this  from  the  peace  of  God 
and  the  mind  of  Jesus  Christ! 

For,  brethren,  every  great  historic  movement  has 
its  vindication  and  its  weakness  in  the  facts  from 
which  it  sprang,  and  the  energy  which  gave  it  impulse 
and  direction.  This  is  as  true  in  theology  and  in 
religious  development  as  it  is  in  politics,  in  philos- 
ophy, or  science,  or  in  art.  Why,  then,  should  men 
seek  to  deceive  themselves  about  the  facts?  Unless, 
perchance,  they  are  beginning  to  be  ashamed  of  their 
origin,  or  have  become  a  reproach  to  their  own  pro- 
genitors ?  Unless  they  are  seeking  to  prolong  a  move- 
ment which  has  reached  its  termination,  or  to  divert 
it  from  its  natural  pathway,  or  to  magnify  it  far 
beyond  its  meaning  and  its  worth? 

But  once  you  are  reconciled  in  the  peace  of  God  to 
the  facts  of  your  origin,  the  glory  and  the  purpose  of 
the  movement  out  of  which  you  came  begin  to  be 


170  IN  MEMOEIAM 

disclosed.  You  see  it  as  it  really  was;  not  the  work 
of  angels  or  of  demigods,  but  the  work  of  men  of  like 
passions  with  yourselves.  You  see  it,  not  like  a  New 
Jerusalem  descending  in  splendor  from  the  sky,  but 
like  land  redeemed  after  fearful  struggle  from  the 
sea,  like  a  city  builded  first  of  mud,  and  then  of  wood, 
and  finally  of  stone.  Directly,  too,  you  are  recon- 
ciled to  the  facts  of  your  own  origin  you  begin  to 
understand  the  maze  of  Christian  movements  of 
which  your  own  is  only  one.  As  the  fictions  are 
cleared  away,  the  real  unity  of  the  church,  the  com- 
munion of  the  saints,  begins  to  stand  out  like  the 
unity  of  humanity.  Not  a  unity  of  form,  but  a 
unity  of  imperishable  instinct,  of  unutterable  long- 
ing, of  painful  blundering  toward  a  blessed  consum- 
mation, a  unity  struggling  through  diversity  and  hin- 
drance like  Milton's  lion,  in  the  tumult  of  creation, 
"pawing  to  get  free."  You  will  then  become  aware 
how  narrow  and  how  imperfect  are  the  common  con- 
ceptions of  Christian  unity,  how  vulgar  and  inade- 
quate after  all  the  vision  of  a  visible  order  and  a 
uniform  administration;  how  glorious,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  historic  continuity  which  holds  together 
the  "congregation  of  Christian  people  dispersed 
throughout  the  world,"  and  through  the  centuries. 
Amid  the  tumult  of  human  thought  and  the  rush  and 
storm  of  human  feeling,  you  will  recognize  the  voice 
of  God;  as  the  living  stones  are  lifted  struggling  to 
their  places  in  the  mighty  structure  of  human  history 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  171 

you  will  hear  the  cry  of  chaos  surrendering  to  the  sun- 
shine. "The  Lord  is  building  up  his  holy  temple, 
let  all  the  earth  keep  silence  before  him." 

Then  that  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing will  make  you  just  to  others  also.  In  the 
light  of  the  truth  you  will  humbly  acknowledge  God's 
image  in  saints  of  other  names  and  other  times;  you 
will  see  the  beauty  of  holiness,  the  virtue,  the  praise, 
the  loveliness  of  those  most  different  from  your  first 
ideals;  even  error  will  have  fresh  meaning  for  you, 
and  over  all  the  scene  of  struggling  thought  and  feel- 
ing will  radiate  that  charity  without  which  no  man 
ever  saw  the  face  of  God  in  human  history. 

But,  brethren,  I  urge  you  to  these  larger  views  for 
yet  another  reason.  The  age  in  which  we  live  is 
marked  by  currents  of  thought  in  two  distinct  direc- 
tions. The  one  movement  of  thought  is  toward  an 
increase  of  power;  the  other  movement  is  toward  an 
increase  of  reality.  Nikola  Tesla  stood  a  few  months 
ago  among  the  scientists  of  England,  and,  as  the 
lightnings  flashed  in  harmless  splendor  from  his 
fingers,  spoke  of  infinite  and  immanent  energies  which 
pelt  each  other  in  the  air  about  us,  and  of  a  machin- 
ery of  nature  close  at  hand,  so  vast,  so  vital,  so 
intricate,  so  tireless,  so  tremendous,  that  the  momen- 
tary flash  of  it  promised  to  his  breathless  auditors  a 
boundless  progress  for  the  human  race.  On  the  other 
hand,  "the  history  of  our  race,  the  history  of  the 
earth  in  which  our  race  has  lived,  the  history  of  the 


172  IN  MEMORIAM 

vast  system  in  which  this  earth  is  but  an  insignificant 
unit,  are  beginning  to  stand  out  in  clear  outline  from 
the  mists  which  hang  around  them."  The  Christian 
preacher  of  our  time  finds  himself  confronted  with  a 
generation  demanding  of  him  power,  and  clamorous 
for  fact.  In  an  age  of  miracles  like  this,  marked  by 
repeated  inbreaks  of  visible  and  tangible  energy,  men 
will  laugh  away  a  powerless  faith.  The  natural 
energy  at  our  command  is  so  tremendous  that  a  puny 
supernatural  would  excite  nothing  but  scorn  and 
mockery.  The  Light  of  the  spiritual  world  to  which 
you  point  must  be  as  glorious  to  the  common  eye  as 
yonder  solar  orb,  as  mysterious  and  fathomless  in  His 
luminous  depths  as  yonder  fount  of  undulating  power. 
On  the  other  hand,  an  age  of  historic  inquiry,  an  age 
intolerant  of  fiction  and  of  legend,  an  age  that  photo- 
graphs the  spots  on  the  sun,  and  deciphers  the  inscrip- 
tions cut  by  distant  centuries,  will  not  be  satisfied 
with  your  traditions  merely  because  you  guard  them 
in  a  sacred  shrine,  and  will  despise  both  you  and 
them,  if  you  resist  the  study  of  them,  with  panic- 
stricken  anger. 

The  preacher  of  the  gospel  may  not  insist  upon  the 
historic  aspects  of  his  faith,  and  at  the  same  time 
refuse  to  the  documents  on  which  he  rests  the  appli- 
cation of  scientific  methods  of  historic  inquiry.  He 
may  say  exultantly,  the  gospel  is  more  than  history, 
it  is  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  He  may  say 
exultingly,  Jesus  Christ  was,  and  he  also  is.  He 
died,  but  he  lives.    But  to  the  question,  How  is  your 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  173 

conception  of  Christ  related  to  the  mutations  of  the 
Christian  faith  through  nineteen  centuries;  how  is  it 
related  to  the  original  documents  of  Christian  history, 
he  must  give  patient  and  courageous  attention.  Let 
the  peace  of  God,  which  passeth  all  understanding, 
keep  his  heart  and  his  thought  in  Jesus  Christ;  but 
whatsoever  things  are  true,  let  him  discover  and  pon- 
der, and,  at  proper  times  and  places,  let  him  proclaim. 
Protestantism,  I  have  said  already,  was  a  momentary 
return  to  the  New  Testament.  But  the  clouds 
resumed  their  sway.  Then  came  the  great  revival. 
A  pentecostal  burst  of  power  drove  away  the  wrap- 
pings from  the  darkened  church  once  more.  White- 
field,  and  Wesley,  and  Fletcher  pointed  bewildered 
men  to  the  simplicity  of  the  primitive  faith,  to  the 
joys  of  primitive  experience,  to  the  purity  of  the 
primitive  ethics,  to  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to 
the  Jesus  of  Paul  and  John,  to  the  hidden  glories 
of  a  conscious  life  in  God.  Protestantism  and  Meth- 
odism were  both  efforts  to  escape  from  the  traditions 
of  men,  from  the  entanglements  of  ecclesiastical 
ceremonial,  from  the  bewilderments  of  theological 
subtlety,  from  system-mongers,  and  legend-mongers, 
from  pagan  intrusions,  and  profane  perversions,  from 
dead  opinions  and  corrupting  practice.  The  six- 
teenth century  rediscovered  the  Bible;  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  rediscovered  Jesus  Christ. 
But  the  devils  I  have  mentioned  are  not  easily  cast 
out  or  kept  out.  Disguised  as  angels  of  light  they 
return  persistently  to  their  former  habitations,  and 


174  IN  MEMORIAM 

work  the  ancient  mischief  into  newer  and  more  attrac- 
tive forms.  The  work  which  the  reformers  began 
ended  in  confessions  and  catechisms  from  which  the 
Protestant  conscience  is  yet  struggling  to  get  free; 
the  energy  of  the  great  revival  has  been  succeeded  by 
the  Oxford  movement,  and  the  cry  of  "Back  to 
Rome!"  All  the  more,  therefore,  do  we  need  the 
peace  of  God  to  guard  our  hearts  and  minds  in 
Christ  Jesus,  while  we  strive  in  candor,  in  patience, 
in  humility  to  make  distinct  and  clear  to  ourselves 
the  story  of  that  early  church,  the  nature  of  that 
early  Christian  life.  We  know  who  Christ  is;  we 
must  know  exactly  what  he  was.  We  must  discover 
him  in  all  the  grandeur  of  his  being  and  the  fulness 
of  his  power. 

At  first  sight  the  student  of  historic  theology  is 
apt  to  think  that  he  can  learn  here  only  how  not  to 
discover  him.  It  shows  him  the  hermit  and  the 
mystic  abandoned  wholly  to  his  emotions  and  his 
imagination;  and  we  see  Christ  fade  away  into  a 
dream,  a  vague  mysterious  outline,  a  splendid  shadow, 
an  adorable  enigma,  alluring  men  and  women  from 
the  sanctities  of  home  and  the  activities  of  society. 
It  shows  him  the  philosopher,  the  theosophist,  the 
theologian  abandoned  to  his  logic,  his  speculations, 
his  abstractions;  and  Christ  becomes  a  cluster  of 
strange  terms,  a  trick  of  God  to  baffle  Satan  with,  a 
startling  solution  of  a  problem  that  taxed  to  the 
utmost  an  infinite  intelligence.  It  shows  us  the 
ecclesiastic,  with  his  passion  for  pomp  and  mystery 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  175 

and  ceremonial,  his  longing  for  organic  unity  and 
visible  miracle;  and  Christ  becomes  a  consecrated 
wafer,  a  perpetual  incarnation  at  the  beck  of  human 
hands.  It  shows  us  the  crusader  full  of  fight  and 
fury,  swept  forward  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and 
Christ  becomes  a  banner,  a  battle  cry,  an  angel  of 
destruction,  the  invisible  leader  of  mobs  and  armies, 
the  terror  of  the  heretic  and  infidel.  It  shows  us  the 
polemic,  the  inquisitor,  the  enthusiast;  and  Christ 
becomes  a  whirl  of  dust,  a  flame  of  fire,  an  aureole 
of  splendor.  Yet,  beneath  all  this  turbulence  and 
ignorance,  beneath  this  subtlety  and  speculation, 
beneath  these  survivals  of  pagan  civilization,  of 
oriental  mysticism,  of  heathen  passion,  beneath  all 
these  enthusiasms  and  aberrations  of  bewildered 
humanity,  the  sympathetic  and  candid  students  of  his- 
tory will  discover  that  Jesus  Christ  has  been  always 
potent,  and  potent  according  as  he  has  been  under- 
stood and  exemplified.  Here,  if  anywhere,  the  mag- 
nificent saying  of  John  has  found  its  illustration; 
men  and  societies  have  grown  like  Jesus  whenever 
they  have  seen  him  as  he  is. 

But  if  you  reverse  the  words  of  Paul;  if  you 
read  them:  "The  passions  of  Satan  shall  keep 
your  hearts  and  minds  in  perpetual  controversy 
about  Jesus  Christ.  Whatsoever  things  are  false, 
whatsoever  things  are  profane,  whatsoever  things 
are  unrighteous,  whatsoever  things  are  impure, 
whatsoever  things  are  ugly,  whatsoever  things  are 
scandalous,  if  there  be  any  vice,  if  there  be  any 


176  IN  MEMORIAM 

blame,  think  on  these  things,"  you  will  find,  alas! 
enough  to  keep  you  busy  for  a  lifetime.  You  might 
construct  the  history  of  physical  science  in  the  same 
satanic  spirit;  telling  of  astrology  and  alchemy;  of 
ancient  demonologies  and  mediaeval  magic,  of  the 
philosopher's  stone,  of  the  elixir  of  life,  of  perpetual 
motion,  of  epicycles  and  fictitious  planets,  of  Kep- 
ler's angels  and  the  Cartesian  vortices  ending  it  all 
by  abusing  heaven  as  a  fraud,  and  nature  as  a  cheat. 
What  childish  folly  that  would  be !  Tesla  and  Edison, 
Hertz  and  Helmholtz,  standing  in  the  places  of  their 
power  would  tell  you :  "We  are  the  fruit  and  progeny 
of  all  this  struggle  after  truth  and  fact.  The  old 
men  dreamt  dreams,  but  we,  their  children,  see 
visions."  In  like  manner,  if  you  study  the  history  of 
theological  science  and  of  the  church,  in  the  peace 
of  God  and  the  radiance  of  Christian  love,  you  will 
see  that  the  great  thinkers  and  the  great  doers  of 
the  church  have  been  powerful,  not  through  their 
errors  and  mistakes,  but  through  whatever  truth  they 
taught,  whatever  righteousness  they  wrought.  One 
touch  of  the  real  Jesus  Christ  makes  the  whole  church 
kin,  and  your  heart  will  leap  up  within  you  as  you 
hear  the  voice  proclaiming:  "All  these,  having 
obtained  a  good  report  through  faith,  did  not  receive 
the  promise;  God  having  furnished  some  better  thing 
for  us,  that  they  without  us  should  not  be  made 
perfect." 

For  the  contact  of  Jesus  Christ  with  each  succes- 
sive type  of  human  mind  has  made  the  meaning  and 


CHAEI.ES  J.  LITTLE  177 

the  power  of  him  more  distinct  and  wonderful,  just 
as  the  contact  of  the  light  and  lightning  with  each  suc- 
cessive type  of  human  mind  has  given  us  at  last  our 
radiant  energy  and  our  undulations  of  electric  fire. 
Even  the  resistance  to  him  has  made  the  glory  stream 
in  splendor  from  his  garments,  as  the  skepticism  of 
the  changing  epochs  has  challenged  him  to  fresh  dem- 
onstrations of  his  strength;  as  each  arriving  moral 
crisis  of  the  nations  has  demanded  some  newer  revela- 
tion of  his  saving  grace;  as  each  peculiar  type  of 
human  character  has  displayed  some  overmastering 
impulse  to  be  conquered,  some  subtle  weakness  to  be 
strengthened,  some  unexpected  fetter  to  be  broken, 
some  daring  aspiration  struggling  for  breath  and  life. 

Members  of  the  class  of  1892 :  You  must  bear  me 
witness  at  the  judgment  seat,  whether  I  have  taught 
you  historic  theology  in  this  peace  of  God,  in  this 
breadth  of  Christian  charity,  in  this  fearlessness  of 
fact,  in  this  eager  search  for  the  riches  and  the  mys- 
tery of  God  in  human  society  and  human  thought. 
Our  lives  have  flowed  together  for  a  moment,  and 
now  we  separate;  I  to  spend  the  remnant  of  my  life 
in  learning  and  in  teaching,  you  to  preach  the  word, 
the  thought  of  God. 

0  brethren,  do  not  preach  sermons  only;  preach 
Jesus  Christ.  Preach  him,  not  in  doubtful  disputa- 
tions, not  for  controversy,  but  for  consolation,  not  in 
hazy  speculations,  not  in  cold  abstractions ;  but  preach 
Him,  the  ever-living,  ever-loving,  ever-helpful  Christ. 
Let  your  learning  broaden  your  minds  and  widen  your 


i78  IJST  MEMOEIAM 

sympathies;  let  it  strengthen  your  reason,  and  sim- 
plify your  speech;  let  it  turn  your  thought  to  sun- 
shine, not  to  illuminated  fog ;  tell  the  mighty  thoughts 
of  God  as  Jesus  did  in  the  language  of  the  common 
people.  Let  your  learning  never  separate  you  from 
the  feeblest  of  your  fellows;  let  it  never  darken  for 
you  the  image  of  your  Lord.  Let  your  individuality 
be  swallowed  up  in  his  glorious  being;  and  do  not, 
I  implore  you,  dwarf  him  to  the  stature  of  an  unpro- 
"ressive  mind.  Learn  from  the  revelations  of  him 
through  these  centuries  of  human  society  and  human 
character  how  to  preach  him  for  your  time.  Clear 
your  minds  of  cant,  of  eccentricity,  of  fictions  and 
phantasms  and  vain  imaginations,  and  preach  Jesus 
Christ.  Preach  him  in  the  meekness  and  lowliness  of 
his  heart;  preach  him  in  the  grandeur  of  his  death 
and  the  glory  of  his  resurrection;  preach  him  in  the 
beauty  of  his  conduct;  preach  him  in  the  sublime 
exactions  of  his  morality;  preach  him  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins;  preach  him  as  the  power  of  an  endless 
life.  Preach  him  till  little  children  gather  about  him ; 
preach  him  till  erring  women  fall  and  kiss  his  feet; 
preach  him  till  trembling  mothers  bring  their  babes 
for  benediction ;  preach  him  till  conscience-stricken 
sinners  pass  silent  from  his  presence,  and  money 
changers  in  the  temple  fly  before  his  scourge.  Preach 
him  till  Samaritan  and  heretic  shall  see  the  radiance 
of  his  loving  eyes;  preach  him  till  centurions  and 
magistrates  shall  bend  beneath  his  power.     Preach 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  179 

him  till  the  weary  and  the  heavy-laden  come  to  him 
for  rest ;  preach  him  until  his  judgment  throne  stands 
out  distinct  and  awful  with  saints  and  sinners  trem- 
bling on  either  hand.  Preach  him  as  Peter  preached 
him  in  the  flush  of  pentecostal  power;  preach  him  as 
John  preached  him  in  the  glory  of  his  aged  recollec- 
tions; preach  him  as  Paul  preached  him  to  Jew  and 
Greek,  barbarian  and  Eoman ;  not  with  enticing  spec- 
ulations, but  in  the  demonstration  and  the  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Out  of  the  depths  of  an  experience 
growing  richer,  and  a  knowledge  growing  clearer  and 
larger;  out  of  the  peace  of  God  which  passeth  under- 
standing, and  the  love  of  God  which  passeth  knowi- 
ng® j  by  gentle,  lucid,  and  courageous  speech;  by 
judicious  and  heroic  silence;  by  patience  and  forti- 
tude and  faith;  by  forbearance  and  by  deed,  preach 
him,  the  life  and  light  of  men.  Do  not  surround  him 
with  artificial  splendors,  thinking  to  make  him  more 
attractive ;  do  not  degrade  him  to  a  puzzle  and  a  prob- 
lem, but  preach  him  as  he  preached  himself,  the 
shepherd  of  lost  sheep,  the  likeness  of  the  Father,  the 
friend  of  sinners,  the  redeemer  of  mankind. 

Just  before  I  wrote  these  final  words,  there  was 
shown  to  me  the  letter  of  a  distinguished  German 
scholar,  Dr.  Muller,  of  Berlin,  referring  to  the  death 
of  my  honored  and  beloved  predecessor.  One  passage 
of  that  letter  is  full  of  touching  beauty.  "To  our 
departed  friend  gone  home,"  the  German  archaeologist 
exclaims,  "I  send  as  greeting  one  of  the  inscriptions 


180  IN  MEMORIAM 

from  the  ancient  monuments  which  he  so  delighted 
to  study.  'Peace  be  with  thee/  Surely  he  makes 
answer  with  that  other  inscriptional  greeting,  'Peace 

BE  WITH  YOU  ALL/  w 

Brethren,  Dr.  Bennett  was  your  instructor  more 
than  I  have  been,  and  rightfully  he  takes  his  place 
beside  me  here.  His  manly  hand,  I  feel  it  on  my 
shoulder!  His  rich,  strong  voice  is  overpowering 
mine.  Clear  as  his  vision  used  to  be,  the  past  is 
plainer  to  him  now.  What  used  to  seem  discordant 
and  dissevered  stretches  out  before  him  glorious  in 
the  blaze  of  perfect  providence.  In  the  accent  of  the 
New  Jerusalem  his  benediction  breaks  across  your 
future  life  and  mine.     Peace  be  with  you  all. 


SOURCES  OF  ERROR  IN  RELIGIOUS 
TEACHING 


SOURCES  OF  ERROR  IN  RELIGIOUS 
TEACHING* 

Ye  do  err,  not  knowing  the  Scriptures,  nor  the 
power  of  God. — Matt.  xxii:29. 

THE  text  is  familiar  enough;  so  too  is  the  scene 
from  which  it  is  taken.  The  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
ducees  of  Jerusalem  are  trying  to  entangle  Jesus  in 
his  talk.  There  is  a  crowd  about  the  young  Naz- 
arene ;  the  cunning  thing  is  to  appeal  to  popular  prej- 
udice and  especially  to  attack  him  with  Moses.  His 
enemies  posed  as  saints,  particularly  the  Pharisees. 
The  scribes  and  lawyers  were  what  we  call  theolo- 
gians; students  and  expounders  of  the  Scriptures; 
which  were  not  then  in  everybody's  reach.  Manuscripts 
were  too  bulky.  Much  was  of  course  committed  to 
memory;  much  floated  in  the  air;  but  the  current 
Scriptures  were  selections  only,  incrusted  with  tra- 
ditions and  interpretations,  numerous,  inharmonious, 
often  subtle,  frequently  absurd,  seldom  helpful. 

Satan  quoted  Scripture  to  Jesus  in  the  wilderness; 
the  Scribes  and  Sadducees  quoted  it  to  Him  in  Jeru- 
salem ;  each  for  the  same  purpose  and  in  vain,  to  con- 
found and  destroy  Him. 


*  Baccalaureate  sermon  delivered  in  First  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  Evanston,  Illinois,  April  29,  1900,  for  the 
Graduating  Class  of  1900,  Qarrett  Biblical  Institute. 

183 


184  IN  MEMOKIAM 

The  Sadducees  appealed  to  Moses  in  order  to  dis- 
prove the  resurrection.  Why  not?  Nowadays  men 
appeal  to  the  universe  and  its  laws  in  order  to  abolish 
God;  or  to  the  marvelous  human  body  in  order  to 
disprove  the  existence  of  the  soul  that  informs  and 
controls  it;  or  to  the  words  of  Jesus  Himself  to 
defend  what  He  condemned  and  to  denounce  what  He 
required.  This  trick  is  an  old  one.  Turn  the  truth 
of  God  into  a  snare ;  make  the  inferior  and  collateral 
commandment  destroy  the  superior  and  principal  rev- 
elation ;  "it  is  as  easy  as  lying  V  And  so  these  Sad- 
ducees pounced  upon  a  peculiar  provision  of  the 
domestic  law  (a  provision  that  every  one  of  them 
would  have  evaded,  if  he  had  found  himself  disagree- 
ably involved  in  it),  and  discovered  in  this  provision, 
a  disproof  of  immortality.  A  pitiful  business  to  be 
sure !  But  the  devil  is  not  altogether  dead !  nor  has 
he  ceased  to  use  the  Scriptures,  in  person  or  by  proxy. 

And,  therefore,  it  seems  proper  and  even  necessary 
to  speak  to  you  a  final  word  about  the  sources  of  error 
in  religious  teaching.  There  are  two  of  them:  I. 
Ignorance  of  the  Scriptures;  and  II.  Mean  Concep- 
tions of  God. 

I.    Ye  do  err  not  knowing  the  Scriptures. 

First.  Note,  however,  that  the  ignorance  of  which 
Jesus  speaks  is  the  ignorance  of  the  learned.  There  is 
no  fool,  said  Hobbes,  like  an  Athenian  fool.  The  trou- 
ble with  men  that  write  books,  said  Walter  Bagehot,  is 
that  they  know  so  little;  which  is  even  more  true  of 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  185 

men  that  make  speeches  and  deliver  lectures.  Per- 
haps the  chief  waste  of  the  world  is  the  intellect  that 
is  squandered  in  defense  of  falsehood  and  absurdity; 
the  intellect  that  is  ruined  in  perversion  of  truth  and 
its  corruption,  and  the  waste  of  life  that  follows. 
Many  a  humble  saint  who  cannot  pronounce  the  un- 
familiar Scripture  names  correctly,  who  has  never 
heard  of  Yahweh  and  the  Hexateuch,  knows  more 
about  the  Scriptures  than  the  haughty  scholar  who 
finds  mysterious  meanings  even  in  the  specks  upon 
the  pages  of  his  Hebrew  Bible.  Now,  what  is  the 
explanation  of  this  ignorance  of  the  learned?  These 
Scribes  and  Sadducees  are  only  a  small  section  of 
the  procession  whose  smoking  torches  have  darkened 
the  sky  and  blinded  the  eyes  of  every  generation. 
Well!  Jesus  has  given  us  the  reason.  They  make 
void  the  Scriptures  with  their  traditions;  the 
Bible  is  not  the  source  of  their  doctrines;  it 
serves  only  as  proof  of  them.  Cardinal  Newman 
propounded  this  view  in  his  extremity,  and  the  Jesuit 
Father  Clarke  has  followed  him  bravely  in  his  recent 
articles  on  the  continuity  of  the  Catholic  doctrine. 
This,  they  tell  us,  was  not  derived  from  the  Scrip- 
tures ;  it  was  given  to  the  true  church  by  Christ  and 
His  apostles.  It  is  eternally  the  same,  however  sur- 
prising the  phases  of  it  that  are  progressively  unfolded 
under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  The  proposi- 
tion has  only  one  defect;  it  is  not  true.  The  Bible 
contradicts  and  disproves  it.  It  or  the  Bible  must 
be  surrendered.    For  this  was  precisely  the  error  of 


186  IN  MEMORIAM 

which  Jesus  accused  the  Scribes.  They  made  void 
the  Scriptures  by  traditions. 

And  what  Scriptures  did  they  nullify?  The 
Master  comprises  them  in  a  phrase,  "The  weight- 
ier matters  of  the  law;"  the  eternal  mandates 
of  righteousness  in  which  Jehovah  had  embodied 
His  will.  St.  Paul,  with  wonderful  depth  and 
clearness,  points  out  that  the  carnal  mind,  the 
mind  of  the  flesh  is  enmity  against  God,  that  it  is 
not  and  cannot  be  subject  to  the  law  of  God.  There 
you  have  the  secret  of  all  corrupted  truth.  The  ten 
commandments,  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  excite  the 
hostility  of  the  mind  of  the  flesh.  The  problem 
becomes  not  to  explain  but  to  evade  them,  to  maim 
them,  or  to  twist  them  to  a  contrary  sense.  How  can 
this  be  done?  Since  the  meaning  of  the  record  is  so 
plain  and  the  purpose  of  the  mandate  is  equally  clear. 
Call  up  tradition !  Establish  an  authority !  Listen  to 
Rabbi  ben  Jacob  and  Rabbi  ben  Judah  and  Rabbi  ben 
Ichabod !  These  are  the  inspired  teachers  of  the  law. 
But  is  not  the  fifth  commandment  plain  and  peremp- 
tory? And  was  not  a  dreadful  threat  mingled  with 
its  sublime  promises?  Does  it  not  read  without 
equivocation,  "Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother?" 
"Oh !  Who  are  thou,  foolish  boy,  to  contradict  the  el- 
ders of  Israel  ?  Go  at  once,  simpleton,  with  Corban  to 
the  old  people  and  take  their  receipt  in  full !" 

Need  I  remind  you,  brethren,  that  the  history  of 
Israel  and  the  history  of  Christianity  are  both  polluted 
with  this  slime  of  the  carnal  mind  ?  Like  worms  whose 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  187 

eggs  have  been  deposited  in  some  precious  manuscript, 
so  these  traditions  eat  through  the  noblest  revelations ; 
and,  what  is  worse,  the  crawling  insects  are  wor- 
shipped as  though  they  were  divine.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  confessions  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries.  Every  one  of  them  is  stained  with 
the  blood  of  civil  war.  There  is  much  in  them  that  is 
noble  and  sublime;  there  is  much  in  them  also  of 
human  passion  and  human  obstinacy  and  human 
error.  They  contain,  indeed,  the  faith  of  our  fathers ; 
but  they  contain  also  their  folly.  Now,  if  we  follow 
our  divine  Master  we  will  separate  the  law  and  the 
prophets  from  all  traditions  that  destroy  their  mean- 
ing and  impair  their  power.  For  He  arraigned,  in 
unmistakable  terms,  the  theologians  of  Israel.  He 
accused  them,  as  He  did  Nicodemus,  of  not  knowing 
the  fundamental  spiritual  teachings  of  Moses  and  the 
prophets;  He  accused  them  of  not  understanding  the 
great  event  that  determined  the  career  of  Moses  and 
the  destiny  of  Abraham's  posterity,  the  revelation  of 
the  burning  bush!  Indeed,  His  conflicts  with  them 
can  all  be  summed  up  in  the  single  clause:  "Ye  do 
not  know  the  Scriptures." 

Doubtless  they  alleged  often  enough,  that  they 
knew  them  better  than  He  did.  And  certainly  they 
possessed  a  kind  of  learning  that  He  never  displayed ; 
although  His  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  over- 
whelmed them  so  completely.  But  it  was  not  their 
sort  of  knowledge.  All  that  the  evangelists  record  as 
quoted   by  Him   from  the  Old  Testament  can   be 


188  IN  MEMORIAM 

printed  on  two  pages  of  an  ordinary  Oxford  Bible. 
It  was  not  the  number  of  His  citations,  nor  the  quan- 
tity of  Scripture  that  He  recited ;  but  His  honest  use 
of  it,  and  His  divine  interpretation  of  it,  that 
quenched  the  Scribes  as  sunlight  quenches  candles. 
How  proud  yonder  Sadducee  is  of  his  subtle  argu- 
ment !  How  he  delights  in  his  fictitious  widow  with 
the  seven  brothers  bound  to  her  in  the  future  world ! 
How  plainly,  so  he  reasoned,  Moses  had  refuted  by 
this  provision,  this  new  nonsense  about  immortality 
that  some  innovating  Eabbi  must  have  picked  up  in 
Babylon.  To  be  sure,  the  haughty  Sadducee  had  no 
use  for  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.  He  did  not 
study  either  Moses  or  the  prophets  to  ascertain  the 
will  of  Jehovah  or  the  truth  of  life.  Moses  meant 
for  him  the  sanction  of  his  own  ideas,  a  body  of  proof 
for  his  own  prejudices,  a  system  of  excuses  for  his 
own  habits !  And  alas  !  Thirty  centuries  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  Bible  abound  in  similar  abuses  of  this 
great  boon.  And  the  bewilderments  of  theology  have 
been  the  inevitable  consequence. 

Second.  Another  and  no  less  fruitful  form  of  igno- 
rance Jesus  pointed  out  in  this  discussion :  The  eleva- 
tion of  a  temporary  prudential  enactment  into  an  eter- 
nal law.  This  marriage  code  to  which  the  Sadducees 
appealed  was  never  intended,  surely,  to  deny  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul.  Arrangements  like  this  for 
marrying  the  widow  to  her  husband's  brother  were  a 
part  of  a  temporal  economy  and  even  the  noblest 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  189 

forms  of  such  relationships  cannot  outlast  the  tran- 
sient conditions  from  which  they  spring.  Love  is 
eternal.  But  the  relationships  that  have  developed 
it,  will  pass  into  something  sublimer  and  diviner, 
said  Jesus:  "In  heaven  they  neither  marry  nor  are 
given  in  marriage;  they  are  as  the  angels  of  God." 
Now,  this  continual  reference  of  all  questions  to  para- 
mount and  eternal  principles  is  the  method  of  Jesus 
in  dealing  with  the  Scriptures.  And  it  is  also  the 
method  of  Paul.  The  Old  Testament  is  to  them  a 
depository  of  eternal  truths;  but  truths  embedded  in 
a  history,  every  phase  of  which  was  marked  with  stiff- 
necked,  hard-hearted  resistance  to  their  application. 
And  to  mutilate  and  paralyze  these  truths  Sad- 
ducees  and  Scribes  fastened  upon  the  accidental  and 
the  transient.  The  rest  was  easy ;  the  principles  were 
soon  of  no  effect.  How  this  has  wrought  ruin  in 
modern  times,  one  example  will  make  plain.  The 
Mosaic  legislation  touching  slavery,  like  that  concern- 
ing the  cities  of  refuge,  is  on  the  face  of  it  a  remark- 
able effort  to  ameliorate  a  habit  that  was  universal  in 
antiquity.  Here  was  a  concession  to  the  hardness  of 
their  hearts.  Here  also,  the  beginnings  of  freedom ! 
And  yet  forty  years  ago  this  country  was  flooded  with 
arguments  from  learned  theologians  expounding 
slavery  as  a  divine  institution.  Moses  and  Jehovah 
were  both  dishonored.  Because  the  transient  enact- 
ments of  progressive  legislation  were  made  to  obscure 
the  very  principle  from  which  they  proceeded  and 
Almighty  God  was  held  to  be  the  institutor  of  a 


190  IN  MEMORIAM 

system  which  the  record  proves  he  had  started  to 
abolish. 

This  is  but  one  instance  out  of  many.  Jesus 
pointed  out  to  James  and  to  John  how  to  avoid  this 
fatal  error.  "Command,"  they  urged  Him,  "fire  to 
consume  the  Samaritans  as  Elijah  did."  His  answer 
was  twofold.  Eemember  what  truth  you  have  to 
reveal  and  what  spirit  ye  are  of.  Eemember,  too, 
Elijah's  circumstances!  you  have  neither  his  diffi- 
culties nor  his  duties.  You  are  my  disciples;  you  are 
to  declare  and  to  illustrate  good  news;  we  are  come 
to  save  men's  lives,  not  to  destroy  them.  Frequently 
in  the  Old  Testament  the  deed  comes  far  short  of  the 
principle  pleaded  for  its  justification.  Thus  the 
famous  plea  of  Samuel  "to  obey  is  better  than  sacri- 
fice" is  eternally  true,  but  he  is  fatally  in  error  who 
draws  as  Cromwell  did,  a  vindication  of  massacre 
from  the  pieces  of  Agag  that  fell  before  the  angry 
prophet. 

Men  tell  you  sometimes  that  they  want  the  old,  old 
Bible.  But  which  old  Bible  do  they  want?  The  old 
Bible  of  the  Scribes  and  the  Sadducees  or  the  old 
Bible  of  Jesus  and  the  Apostles  ?  The  old  Bible  with 
its  torn  leaves,  stained  and  worm-eaten  by  Godless 
traditions  or  the  old  Bible  recovered  and  restored  by 
Him  that  spake  as  never  man  spake?  Which  of  the 
two  do  they  desire  ?  The  Bible  of  the  Sadducees  and 
Scribes  that  denies  immortality  and  sanctions  sla- 
very and  abrogates  tlhe  ten  commandments,  that 
shelters   liars   and   permits   adultery   with   its   easy 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  191 

divorces,  that  accepts  long  prayers  from  them  that 
devour  widows'  houses  and  compounds  with  hypocrisy 
for  gifts  to  the  temple ;  or  the  old  Bible  that  teaches 
from  Genesis  to  Malachi  the  righteousness  of  God 
and  the  righteousness  of  faith?  The  old  Bible  of 
Rabbi  ben  Ichabod,  from  which  all  the  glory  has  de- 
parted, or  the  old  Bible  of  Rabbi  Jesus  and  Rabbi 
Paul,  the  Bible  of  faith  and  hope  and  love? 

Distinguish,  though,  this  carnally-minded  subtlety 
that  seeks  defenses  for  rotten  institutions  and  rotten 
practices  in  transient  enactments  from  the  inspired 
subtlety  that  discovers  eternal  principles  in  unex- 
pected places.  No  one,  before  Jesus,  had  found  an 
argument  for  immortality  in  the  words  spoken  to 
Moses  from  the  burning  bush.  And  yet  it  was 
always  there  to  be  discovered.  No  one  before  Paul 
had  stated  the  meaning  of  Israel's  history  as  a  whole, 
and  yet  it  is  plain  enough  after  he  has  expounded  it 
to  the  saints  at  Rome.  The  great  German  thinker, 
Lessing,  speaking  of  these  words  of  Jesus  about 
immortality,  declared  that  the  argument  can  be  ex- 
panded into  a  series  of  incontrovertible  propositions, 
but  Lessing  would  hardly  have  made  that  out  by 
himself.  Only  as  students  of  the  Scriptures  start 
out  to  find  the  principles,  tfce  living  indestructible 
soul  of  the  Old  Testament,  do  they  approach  the 
mind  of  God.  And  only  as  they  discover  those  prin- 
ciples, will  they,  in  my  judgment,  come  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  singular  and  difficult  history  in  which 
they  are  embedded.    Hence  there  can  be  no  more  fatal 


192  IN  MEMORIAM 

mistake  than  to  subordinate  the  principle  to  the  his- 
tory, or,  what  is  far  worse,  to  some  current  concep- 
tion of  that  history  which  happens  to  dominate  the 
literary  world.  When  the  people  ask  us  for  bread, 
we  must  beware  how  we  give  them  stones  and  scor- 
pions! The  Old  Testament  abounds  with  truths  of 
sublime  and  eternal  import.  Jesus  recovered  and 
illuminated  these.  He  separated  them  boldly  from 
the  traditions  that  obscured  them  and  from  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  first  proclamation;  disclosing 
their  divine  origin  by  revealing  their  permanent  sig- 
nificance. In  doing  so  he  blended  marvelously  His 
reverence  for  the  earlier  teachers  with  His  reverence 
for  the  voice  of  His  Father  speaking  within  Him. 
There  is  indeed  a  deference  to  the  old;  but  also  a 
calm  assertion  of  His  own  superiority  even  to  the 
greatest  of  the  prophets.  The  story  of  the  accused 
woman  perpetuates  this  characteristic.  This  is  true 
whatever  be  our  view  of  its  right  to  a  place  in  John's 
gospel.  Moses  said:  "Let  her  be  stoned."  True 
enough,  replied  the  Master  determined  upon  mercy, 
then  let  the  unstained  hands  begin.  "Let  him  that  is 
without  sin  cast  the  first  stone."  It  would  carry  me 
beyond  all  proper  limits  to  attempt  to  draw  up  for 
you  a  system  of  the  principles  that  underlie  or  rather 
pervade  the  Old  Testament  writings.  It  can  be  done, 
though,  and  when  properly  done  it  will  exhibit  those 
principles  in  conflict  with  the  carnal  mind  of  Israel; 
just  as  a  system  of  New  Testament  principles  will 
exhibit  them  in  conflict  with  the  carnal  mind  of 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  193 

Christendom.  What  I  insist  upon  is  that  you  shall 
not  mistake  in  either  case  the  perversions  of  the  carnal 
mind  for  the  revelation  that  it  perverts  and  corrupts. 
And  further,  that  you  shall  follow  your  Master's  ex- 
ample and  seek  in  every  case  for  the  divine  truth  that 
is  eternally  paramount  and  overrules  all  apparent 
precedents. 

Eternally  paramount!  How  difficult  that  is  to 
grasp!  "Upon  these  two  commandments  hang  all 
the  law  and  the  prophets."  And  yet  how  few  there 
were,  how  few  there  are  now  to  believe  it.  Men 
jumble  their  beliefs  together  and  insist  that  one  is  as 
important  as  another.  And  after  awhile  they  are 
found  straining  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel. 
The  posture  of  the  body  in  prayer  becomes  of  more 
consequence  than  the  purity  of  the  soul,  and  the  creed 
of  the  tongue  more  significant  than  the  creed  of  the 
heart.  And  so  at  last  we  have  those  museums  of 
contradictions  and  incompatibilities  that  some  men 
call  their  doctrines.  They  are  not  systems  of  theology 
at  all.  They  are  theological  curiosity-shops,  in  which 
human  opinions,  antique  and  recent,  are  labeled 
divine  revelations;  and  the  comments  of  learned 
ignorance  are  spread  out  ostentatiously  as  the  discov- 
eries of  an  infallible  science. 

Discover  and  hold  fast  to  the  eternally  para- 
mount,— in  the  Old  Testament  to  the  revelation 
of  the  Unity,  the  Personality,  the  Righteousness 
of  God  and  to  the  expectation  of  Israel;  in  the 
New  Testament  to  the  revelation   of   eternal   love 


194  IN  MEMOKIAM 

in  Jesus  Christ.  These  are  the  central  revela- 
tions upon  which  all  others  depend.  To  these 
all  the  incidents  of  a  progressive  unfolding  are  of 
necessity  subordinate.  The  revelation  is  not  con- 
tained in  the  incidents  of  history  or  the  peculiarities 
of  individuals,  and  if  you  attempt  to  distil  it  from 
these  you  will  be  more  likely  to  distil  poison  than  the 
elixir  of  life.  Hold  fast  to  the  eternally  paramount ! 
Just  as  the  men  of  science  hold  fast  in  their  investi- 
gations to  the  unchallenged  universal  laws  of  nature. 
Thus  only  can  you  hope  to  discover  and  to  discard  the 
irrelevant  and  erroneous.  And  having  rid  yourselves 
of  these,  you  will  move  rapidly  to  unexpected  treas- 
ures. New  light  will  break  forth  from  the  old  pages. 
The  voice  of  God  within  you  will  reaffirm  the  truth 
recorded  in  the  ancient  documents.  Discord  will  dis- 
solve into  concord.  The  clouds  and  the  darkness 
about  the  throne  of  Jehovah  will  melt  away  into 
righteousness  and  judgment.  The  magnitude,  the 
splendor,  the  historic  power,  the  indestructible  moral 
and  spiritual  grandeur  of  the  oracles  of  God  commit- 
ted to  his  chosen  but  rebellious  people  will  overwhelm 
and  overawe  you  and  like  St.  Paul  you  will  exclaim  in 
the  joy  of  your  discovery,  "Oh,  the  depth  of  the  riches 
of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God." 

Third.  Jesus  restored  the  Scriptures  in  another  way 
He  interpreted  them  honestly.  Even  when  traditions 
are  discarded,  even  when  transient  enactments  and 
historical  incidents  are  separated  from  the  eternal 
principles  around  which  they  cluster,  it  is  still  possible 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  195 

to  ruin  revelation  by  interpretation.  I  once  heard  a 
learned  judge  boast  that  a  statute  could  not  be  framed 
which  his  court  could  not  nullify.  And  alas !  there  is 
no  truth,  however  sublime,  that  cannot  be  degraded  to 
vile  uses  or  distorted  by  misinterpretation.  "Do  you 
believe  in  doing  to  others  as  you  would  like  them  to 
do  to  you?"  says  the  greedy  boy  to  his  sister.  "Well 
then  give  me  both  oranges !"  How  the  voracious  urchin 
typifies  a  whole  host  of  commentators !  Although  not 
unfrequently  we  hear  these  scribes  begin  their  deliv- 
erances with  the  most  extravagant  adoration  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets.  And  while  the  air  still  quivers 
with  the  echoes  of  their  worship,  they  proceed  to 
maim  and  kill  the  truth  of  God. 

There  is  the  allegorical  company  who  can  read  out 
of  the  Scriptures  or  into  them  anything  that  the 
necessities  of  their  craft  or  their  contentions  seem  to 
require.  There  is  the  proof-text  company  who  by 
destroying  the  continuity  of  the  record  and  by  cun- 
ningly rearranging  their  assorted  scraps  of  Scripture 
can  make  out  a  case  for  almost  any  proposition.  And 
now-a-days  we  have  the  historical  company  with  their 
literary  attachment  who  are  in  grave  danger  of  for- 
getting that  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  like  any 
other  commonwealth,  was  vastly  more  important  than 
any  theory  of  its  constitution ;  that  the  principles,  the 
moral  and  spiritual  momentum  contributed  by  Israel 
to  the  world,  are  the  real  wonders  to  be  explained. 
To  be  sure,  each  of  these  methods  has  a  value.  Jesus, 
for  instance,  spoke  in  parables;  but  He  never  muti- 


196  IN  MEMOEIAM 

lated  either  commands  or  principles  by  converting 
them  into  parables.  And  I  beg  you  to  ponder  the 
reason  Jesus  gives  for  speaking  in  parables.  It  applies 
in  my  judgment  to  the  entire  Scriptures.  It  is  in- 
volved in  the  very  nature  of  a  revelation  that  shall 
be  permanent  and  progressive  on  the  one  hand,  and 
yet  on  the  other  applicable  to  existing  circumstances. 
He  told  His  disciples  that  He  did  not  wish  his  para- 
bles to  be  understood  easily  by  the  multitude.  He 
wished  them  to  be  heard,  to  be  remembered,  to  be 
pondered.  This  has  been  the  divine  method  of  in- 
struction. First  the  bright  specks  in  the  sky;  then 
after  centuries  of  investigation,  the  measureless  stars, 
the  tremendous  mechanics  of  the  celestial  world.  And 
what  is  true  of  the  allegory  and  parable  is  true  also 
of  the  proof-text  method.  Jesus  used  this  continually. 
He  used  it  in  His  temptation ;  He  used  it  in  His  con- 
troversies. But  note  how  He  used  it.  He  selected 
always  passages  that  contained  eternal  principles. 
"Thou  shalt  not' tempt  the  Lord  thy  God/'  "On 
these  two  commandments  hang  all  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets."  "Go  and  learn  what  this  means,  I  will 
have  mercy  rather  than  sacrifice."  Used  as  He  used 
it,  the  proof-text  method  is  absolutely  safe.  When, 
however,  some  inferior  catch-word  or  some  favorite 
theory  serves  as  a  kind  of  magnet  to  get  congenial 
scraps  together,  the  structure  of  the  Bible  is  forgotten 
and  the  purpose  of  revelation  is  defeated.  Hence  I 
would  rather  trust  the  marked  Bible  of  some  dear 
old  saint  who  under  guidance  of  the  Spirit  selected 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  197 

the  passages  that  fed  and  replenished  her  famished 
soul,  than  any  ingeniously  constructed  system  of 
proof-texts,  marshalled  to  support  some  ostentatious 
human  theory. 

"But  we  have  changed  all  that,"  you  say.  "We 
have  discovered  the  infallible  method.  We  have 
the  real  magic,  the  golden  key  that  opens  all 
mysteries.  We  have  the  historical  and  literary 
method;  we  have  Biblical  science,  now!"  Indeed! 
Brethren,  forgive  me !  But  I  must  quote  it  just  once 
more.  "God  has  no  pleasure  in  fools !"  The  Scrip- 
tures do  indeed  contain  history  and  literature.  But 
they  are  the  archives  of  successive  revelations  without 
which  neither  Christianity  nor  modern  belief  can  be 
explained.  In  the  order  of  God  the  ideas  firmly  em- 
bedded in  these  Scriptures  have  shaped  the  religious 
education  of  the  world.  And  when  the  modern  scribe 
forgets  this  he  gives  us  only  a  new  and  baleful  blun- 
der. "Die  Weltgeschichte  id  das  WeU-gerichtf'  the 
Germans  are  fond  of  quoting.  "The  history  of  the 
world  is  the  judgment  of  God."  The  Hebrew  Scrip- 
tures have  been  lifted  in  the  course  of  ages  by  the 
Hand  that  rules  all  events  into  a  place  that  no  other 
book  ever  can  occupy.  Any  theory,  therefore,  that 
treats  them  as  mere  history  and  mere  literature  is 
absurd.  Science  stands  hard  by  the  obvious  fact; 
science  explains  the  present  world.  The  Hebrew 
Scriptures  have  been  declared  to  be  the  oracles  of 
God  by  the  progress  of  the  human  race.  They  en- 
shrine within  them  the  Holy  of  Holies  of  the  modern 


198  IN  MEMOEIAM 

world.  They  are  the  Shekinah  of  the  modern  Israel 
in  their  present  wanderings ;  they  are  the  existing  wit- 
ness of  the  Ancient  of  Days,  of  the  Self-revealing  God, 
who  has  been  the  dwelling-place  of  believers  in  all 
generations.  This  unique  position  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  in  the  development  of  humanity  makes  it 
impossible  for  a  genuine  science  to  accept  any  theory 
that  fails  to  explain  it.  A  system  of  optics,  however 
plausible,  that  ended  in  denying  the  sun  as  the  source 
of  sunshine  would  furnish  its  own  refutation  to  all 
except  its  teachers  and  their  infatuated  pupils. 

If  then  the  modern  biblical  scholar  would  not  pro- 
duce more  error  than  he  removes,  the  historical  and 
literary  study  of  the  Scriptures  must  be  pursued,  as  we 
pursue  the  study  of  light,  to  get  a  better  understanding 
of  its  divine  character  and  a  complete  control  of  its 
power.  I  am  asked  frequently  if  I  am  afraid  of  the 
new  method.  It  is  like  asking  me  if  I  am  afraid  of 
dynamite  or  electricity.  Certainly  I  am  afraid  of  them 
in  the  hands  of  agitators  and  fools,  or  of  vacillating 
imitators  and  innovators  who  mistake  the  buzzing  in 
their  brains  of  a  new  idea  for  a  train  of  reasoning, 
and  the  echo  of  a  famous  name  for  the  demonstration 
of  a  theory.  But  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  new  method 
in  the  hands  of  devout  and  sagacious  men.  They  will 
investigate  the  historical  and  literary  form  of  the 
revelation  in  order  to  make  it  plainer  and  more  effi- 
cacious; they  will  recognize  and  maintain  as  Jesus 
and  the  apostles  did,  its  paramount  principles  and  its 
paramount  purposes.  The  unlearned  and  the  unstable 
wrest  these  to  their  own  destruction;  so,  too,  do  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  199 

conceited  and  the  pseudo-erudite,  the  idolaters  of  false 
tradition  and  the  prophets  of  novelty.  And  thus  the 
fountains  are  poisoned.  Men  have  succeeded  in  pol- 
luting everything  that  God  has  given  them.  They 
pollute  the  water  and  they  pollute  the  air  and  they 
corrupt  their  own  blood.  And  God  is  busy  with  His 
oceans,  and  His  lightnings  and  His  sunshine  keeping 
the  old  world  decent  and  habitable.  It  is  not  won- 
derful, therefore,  that  men  corrupt  His  revelations, 
and  handle  the  word  of  God  deceitfully.  Never, 
brethren,  never  poison  the  wells  of  everlasting  life ! 

II.     Ye  err  not  knowing  the  power  of  God. 

This  is  the  second  source  of  error  that  Jesus  named. 
The  enemies  of  the  Messiah  paraded  as  saints.  They 
appealed  to  the  Scriptures  of  which  the  scribes  were 
the  official  expounders.  And  yet  their  conceptions  of 
God  were  mean  and  sordid  and  despicable.  They 
denied  immortality  and  supported  their  denial  with 
the  words  of  Moses.  Their  God  was  too  feeble,  too 
mean,  too  selfish  to  raise  the  dead.  How  could  a 
God  small  enough  to  find  room  in  their  cramped 
souls  be  grand  enough  to  plan  eternal  life?  And  yet 
they  pretended  to  derive  their  notions  of  Jehovah 
from  the  Scriptures.  But  they  did  not.  They 
obtained  them  as  you  obtained  yours,  from  parents 
and  playmates,  from  the  school  and  the  synagogue, 
from  public  opinion  and  expert  exposition.  The" 
Scriptures  had  been  given  that  conceptions  so  derived 
might  be  regulated,  purified,  ennobled,  perfected.    In- 


200  IN  MEMORIAM 

stead  of  that  they  used  the  Scriptures  to  defend  their 
errors  and  to  justify  their  meanness.  And  they  have 
their  successors  in  every  generation. 

In  the  order  of  God  we  are  born  helpless  and 
ignorant  babes.  We  are  born  into  a  stupendous 
physical  world  and  into  a  stupendous  social  world. 
Both  were  here  before  we  arrived.  Gradually  we  dis- 
covered the  sunshine  that  revealed  our  mother's  form 
and  features  and  the  face  that  gave  meaning  to  the 
sunshine.  And  then  we  discovered  ourselves,  the  inner 
world  across  which  flash  the  images  of  time  and  the 
thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity,  and  among 
the  latter  is  the  thought  of  God.  Home  expands  to 
the  neighborhood  and  the  neighborhood  to  the  nation 
and  the  nation  to  humanity.  And  with  each  new 
circle  comes  a  new  thought  of  God.  Sometimes  it 
expands  to  a  horror;  sometimes  it  over-arches  you 
like  the  sky,  a  daily  and  a  nightly  splendor  full  of 
glorious  suggestion,  a  challenge  to  discovery  and  to 
righteousness,  a  source  of  strength  and  joy,  an  ever- 
present  mystery,  a  promise  of  eternal  life  and  power. 
And  then  sometimes  it  dwindles  to  a  dream.  For 
the  multitude  that  surrounds  you  is  polyglot  and  dis- 
cordant; it  chatters  and  doubts  and  disputes  and 
denies  and  dreams  and  demonstrates.  For  you  as  for 
Moses  the  learning  of  Egypt  does  not  fit  in  easily 
with  the  stories  of  mother  and  sister.  And  so  the 
image  of  the  Almighty  wavers  and  grows  dim.  And 
then  you  exchange  the  narrow  nursery  for  the  out- 
door world  and  out-doors  expands  into  the  Universe 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  201 

with  its  magnitudes  and  its  mysteries,  with  its  multi- 
tudes of  living  species  and  its  multitudes  of  restless 
molecules  and  at  each  remove  into  the  vaster  and 
more  wonderful  you  find  your  conceptions  of  God 
changing,  enlarging,  vanishing,  reappearing.  The 
firmament  shows  you  his  handiwork;  but  what  are 
you  to  think  of  Him?  And  then' the  world  within 
you !  The  pleasures  of  sin  entice  you.  The  voice  of 
conscience  entreats  you.  Heavenly  visions  demand 
your  obedience.  And  according  to  your  decision  in 
these  moral  crises  does  the  God  of  your  father  and 
your  mother  approach  or  recede,  bless  or  abandon 
you. 

Now  God  has  ordered  that  the  true  conception 
of  Him  shall  be  framed  from  the  thoughts  of  the 
good  people  that  live  about  us,  and  have  lived  before 
us,  from  right  views  of  nature,  and  from  the  sugges- 
tions of  a  pure  heart:  the  voice  of  the  saints,  the 
voice  of  conscience,  the  voice  of  science,  blend  together 
to  pronounce  aright  the  ineffable  name.  But  if  the 
saints  are  spurious,  if  the  science  is  false,  if  the  con- 
science is  defiled,  then  His  name  perishes  and  evil 
imaginations  take  His  place.  Indeed,  if  any  one  of 
the  three  happens,  the  conception  of  Him  weakens 
and  wavers.  And  seeing  that  there  is  always  danger 
of  a  corrupt  church,  of  a  spurious  science  and  of  a 
polluted  heart ;  so  there  is  always  danger  of  forsaking 
the  fountain  of  living  waters  and  hewing  out  for  our- 
selves broken  cisterns  that  can  hold  no  water.  There- 
fore the  Scriptures  are  scriptures:  therefore  the  word 


202  IN  MEMORIAM 

of  God  has  been  written;  made  permanent  like  Magna 
Clnarta  and  the  great  constitutions  for  which  nations 
have  struggled  so  desperately.  Thus  they  serve  a 
double  purpose,  they  are  a  standard  and  a  challenge  to 
all  that  speak  for  God.  The  language  of  the  prophet 
demands  of  us  to  think  our  deepest  and  our  noblest 
and  to  compare  our  conclusions  with  all  recorded 
revelation.  "His  ways  are  not  as  our  ways  and  His 
thoughts  not  as  our  thoughts  but  as  the  heavens  are 
high  above  the  earth  so  are  His  ways  higher  than  our 
ways  and  His  thoughts  higher  than  our  thoughts." 
And  wherever  the  Scriptures  have  been  studied  with 
the  method  and  the  mind  of  Jesus  these  qualities  of 
standard  and  of  challenge  have  been  clearly  disclosed. 
For  then  it  appears,  how  over  against  all  possible 
corruptions  of  the  carnal  mind  God  has  reiterated  his 
invisible  personality  and  his  immutable  righteousness ; 
how  over  against  the  multitude  of  superstitions  and 
the  uncreated  molecules  of  philosophical  speculations 
He  has  asserted  His  eternal  unity  and  the  majesty  of 
His  eternal  purpose;  how  over  against  the  wickedness 
of  men  He  declares  their  responsibility  and  their  free- 
dom and  unfolds  the  severity  of  His  judgments  and 
how  over  against  the  bewilderment,  the  fear,  the  igno- 
rance, the  sorrow  and  the  sin  of  humanity  He  reveals 
His  mercy  and  His  loving  kindness.  So  that  even 
though  the  communion  of  saints  should  dwindle  to  a 
dim-eyed  remnant,  even  though  in  the  progress  of 
science  the  God  that  rules  the  sky  should  be  forgotten 
in  the  multitude  of  stars  and  molecules,  even  though 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  203 

in  the  stress  and  struggle  of  life,  the  still  small  voice 
should  die  away  to  a  confused  murmur,  these  ancient 
records  would  abide. 

There  they  are;  and  there  they  will  remain. 
They  challenge  the  churches  to  vindicate  their 
doctrine  and  their  conduct.  They  challenge  the 
conscience  to  fidelity  and  summon  the  nations  to 
judgment.  But  they  in  turn  are  challenged  by 
the  communion  of  saints,  by  the  science  of  the  wise 
and  by  the  conscience  of  the  pure  whenever  they  are 
overlaid  with  spurious  tradition  and  false  interpreta- 
tion. The  Mediaeval  scriptures  that  Luther  chal- 
lenged, he  challenged  in  the  name  of  honesty  and 
righteousness;  his  was  the  cry  of  a  conscience  sure 
anyhow  that  the  Bible  was  never  meant  to  sanction 
wickedness.  When  Calvin's  heart  told  him  that  he 
was  ascribing  to  the  Father  of  Jesus  Christ  "a  horrible 
decree"  he  ought  to  have  recognized  the  still  small 
voice  within  him  and  revised  his  exegesis.  When 
the  telescope  of  Galileo  revealed  the  crescent-shaped 
Venus,  it  was  time  for  his  inquisitors  to  remember 
"the  God  of  things  as  they  are"  and  to  read  their 
Bibles  with  unsealed  eyes. 

And  if  it  be  objected  that  such  dependence  upon  co- 
operating influences  must  lead  to  uncertainty  and 
instability,  the  objection  is  easily  disposed  of.  For 
this  is  God's  method  of  imparting  knowledge.  He 
gave  man  five  senses  for  the  discovery  of  the  outer 
world  and  we  know  it  all  the  better  because  of  the 
manifold  endowment.     Surely  we  do  not  see  less 


204  IN  MEMOftlAM 

accurately  because  the  sense  of  touch  supports  and 
corrects  the  sense  of  sight?  Hence  the  prophets  and 
Jesus  himself  make  frequent  appeals  to  conscience 
and  to  intelligence.  "If  ye  being  evil  know  how  to 
give  good  gifts  to  your  children."  "Consider  the  lilies 
of  the  field."  What  are  these  but  appeals  to  the 
heart  and  the  understanding?  And  it  is  the  New 
Testament  that  erects  the  communion  of  saints  into 
an  authority,  informed  and  guided  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 
Every  powerful  error  is  the  shadow  of  a  great  truth; 
and  the  papal  doctrine  of  infallibility  is  only  a  cor- 
ruption of  the  declaration  that  God  abides  with  them 
that  love  Him  and  keep  His  commandments;  and 
that  the  Comforter  shall  guide  the  faithful  into  all 
necessary  knowledge.  Brethren!  You  have  heard 
and  you  shall  hear  often  the  words  of  Jude :  "Con- 
tend earnestly  for  the  faith  for  all  delivered 
to  the  saints/'  When  you  hear  those  words  turn 
to  the  letter  from  which  they  are  taken  and  examine 
the  unholy  forms  against  whom  the  writer  is  warn- 
ing his  readers:  "Unholy  men  who  have  crept  in 
unawares,  who  turn  the  grace  of  God  into  lascivious- 
ness,  who  deny  Jesus  Christ,  the  one  only  Master  and 
Lord.  Murmurers,  complainers,  walking  after  their 
own  lusts  with  their  mouths  full  of  swelling  speeches, 
admiring  men's  person  for  the  sake  of  gain."  This 
is  the  company  of  heretics  Jude  warns  the  disciples  to 
resist.  Put,  therefore,  the  emphasis  where  it  belongs, 
on  saints.    For  these  are  the  guardians  of  the  faith. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  205 

And  then  if  in  the  confusion  of  the  coming  century, 
if  in  the  perpetual  conflict  of  the  new  and  the  old, 
you  are  perplexed  to  know  where  to  find  the  faith, 
hunt  up  the  saints ! 

There  is  just  this  much  truth  in  the  doctrine 
of  apostolic  succession:  the  glad  tiding  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  ark  of  the  New  Testament,  will  always 
be  found  among  those  that  follow  Him  to  do  His 
will.  As  it  was  with  Moses,  who  chose  to  suffer 
affliction  with  the  people  of  God  rather  than  to  enjoy 
the  pleasures  of  sin  for  a  season ;  so  it  was  with  Saul 
of  Tarsus,  who  was  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly 
vision  that  commanded  him  to  separate  himself  from 
his  people  and  to  become  accursed  for  Christ's  sake. 
And  these  are  the  types  of  men  to  whom  the  secrets 
of  eternity  are  opened.  The  Bible  was  and  remains  a 
revelation  made  to  the  saints;  and  in  every  age 
only  the  saints  can  understand  it;  only  those  who 
walk  after  the  spirit  and  are  led  by  the  spirit.  It  was 
given  not  to  philosophers  and  theologians,  but  to  the 
saints ;  it  was  given  not  to  the  proud  and  the  haughty, 
not  to  the  rich  and  the  mighty ;  it  was  given  to  those 
that  walked  by  the  light  of  God  within  them,  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy. 

Neither  give  place,  brethren,  to  "the  murmurers 
and  complainers."  The  century  now  closing  has  not 
been  a  century  of  spiritual  paupers.  In  every  land 
the  disciples  of  Christ  have  appeared,  each  following 
Him  according  to  his  conscience,  and  each  presenting 
some  forgotten  portion  of  His  revelation.     I  could 


206  IN  MEMOEIAM 

make  for  you  a  catalogue  of  familiar  and  unfamiliar 
names,  taken  from  every  continent  of  the  round  globe 
and  from  the  islands  of  the  sea — names  of  which  I  am 
sure  every  one  is  written  in  heaven  because  their 
works  will  follow  them  forever.  Hunt  up  the  Saints, 
I  beseech  you,  whenever  you  are  perplexed  about  the 
faith.  They  keep  it  not  for  show  but  for  use.  It  is 
for  them  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  It  streams 
not  from  their  lips  only,  but  also  from  their  hands. 
They  do  not  strive  nor  cry  nor  advertise  nor  parade ; 
their  faith  is  visible  and  creative.  It  removes  moun- 
tains; it  conquers  hindrance;  it  overcomes  evil;  it 
brings  back  Christ ;  for  He  abides  with  them  that  keep 
His  commandments.  If  these  saints  are  sages  also, 
learn  from  them  the  latest  news  about  the  universe 
and  the  latest  news  about  society,  for  every  theory  of 
nature  and  every  theory  of  humanity  implies  a  con- 
ception of  God.  And  although  candid  and  courageous 
study  of  God's  handiwork  is  a  form  of  worship,  it  is 
only  when  the  sage  is  perfected  by  the  saint  that  his 
wisdom  is  illumined  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

And  finally  be  a  saint  yourself  ! 

Any  science  that  mutilates  your  soul  is  a  false  sci- 
ence. Any  theory  that  corrupts  your  conscience  is  a 
rotten  theory.  "Who  shall  ascend  the  hill  of  the  Lord 
or  enter  into  His  holy  place?  He  that  hath  clean 
hands  and  a  pure  heart,  who  hath  not  lifted  up  his 
soul  to  vanity  or  sworn  deceitfully."  Labor  continu- 
ally, contend  earnestly  for  the  faith  delivered  to  you, 
in  the  hour  of  your  holiest  struggle  when  Christ  ap- 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  207 

peared  to  you  also,  bringing  with  him  peace  and  joy 
and  the  garments  of  strength  and  the  promise  of 
eternal  opportunity.  For  if  your  hearts  are  pure 
your  eyes  will  be  clear,  and  beholding  as  in  a  glass 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  you  will  be  changed  into  the 
same  image  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord.  And  then 
you  can  say  as  was  said  so  long  ago,  "He  that  believeth 
on  the  Son  of  God  hath  the  witness  in-  himself." 


JOHN  WESLEY:  AN  APPRECIATION 


JOHN  WESLEY:  AN  APPRECIATION* 

John  Wesley  records  in  his  journal  that  on  Decem- 
ber 18,  1783,  he  "spent  two  hours  with  that  great 
man,  Dr.  Johnson ."  Two  hours  was.  a  long  time 
for  him  to  spend  with  anybody,  but  he  was  very  fond 
of  the  burly  lexicographer.  Unfortunately  I  have  not 
Lander's  skill,  or  I  should  write  an  imaginary  con- 
versation for  these  two  old  men;  Wesley,  then  in  his 
eighty-first  year,  Johnson  six  years  younger.  If  one 
of  them  "made  the  little  fishes  talk  like  whales,"  the 
other  made  the  whales  talk  like  little  fishes.  They 
were  in  spite  of  that  the  best  talkers  in  England,  and 
strongly  contrasted  as  they  were  in  appearance  and 
in  temperament,  they  were  alike  in  their  candor,  their 
piety,  their  courage  and  their  love  of  common  sense. 
Johnson,  with  his  seamed  face  and  strange  contor- 
tions, had  browbeaten  many  an  interlocutor,  but  he 
never  contradicted  the  man  of  diminutive  stature, 
whose  tranquil  face  and  brilliant  eyes  and  sweet  but 
commanding  voice,  had  conquered  mobs  and  charmed 
multitudes.  The  great  talker  grumbled  only  when 
Wesley  would  not  stay  to  finish  the  dialogue. 

I  begin  here,  for  in  any  estimate  of  John  Wesley, 
one  must  remember  his  natural  charm.    At  home,  at 


Reprinted  from  Christendom. 
211 


212  IN  MEMORIAM 

the  Charter  House  School,  at  Oxford ;  in  his  societies 
and  in  his  conferences;  conversing,  preaching;  alone 
with  strong  men  like  Johnson,  or  facing  listening 
thousands,  he  ruled,  because  he  fascinated. 

This  magic  was  partly  an  inheritance  and  partly  an 
added  gift  of  God.  For  what  is  so  often  described  as 
Wesley's  conversion  was  not  a  turning  round,  but  a 
transfiguration.  Eare  natural  endowments — a  pene- 
trating yet  poetical  mind  finely  trained;  a  conscience 
exquisitely  sensitive  ;•  a  will,  tranquil,  active,  and  in- 
vincible— were  enhanced  by  a  remarkable  religious 
experience.  William  Law's  asceticism,  his  own  high- 
church  proclivities,  the  Georgia  climate,  his  troubles 
at  Savannah,  might  easily  have  spoiled  John  Wesley's 
temper  and  dwarfed  his  soul;  but  "the  strange  warn- 
ing of  the  heart"  which  came  to  him,  not  in  the  period 
of  adolescence,  but  in  the  prime  of  manhood  (he  was 
thirty-five  when  it  came),  restored  to  him  the  glad- 
ness of  his  boyhood  and  delivered  him  once  for  all 
"from  the  spirit  of  bondage  again  to  fear." 

Wesley  was  eminently  social,  cheerful,  radiantly 
communicative  and  fond  of  folks,  especially  of  the 
poor  and  the  needy  and  the  humble  and  the  good. 
He  learned  German  to  converse  with  the  Moravians; 
he  learned  Spanish  to  talk  to  some  Spanish  Jews  in 
Georgia;  he  revived  his  French  to  carry  cheer  and 
help  to  the  French  prisoners  at  Knowle  and  Win- 
chester. But  although  he  revered  knowledge  and 
intellect  and  integrity  and  authority,  he  never  wor- 
shiped purple  and  fine  linen — the  robes  of  bishops  or 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  213 

the  coronets  of  dukes.  He  had  derived  or  learned 
from  his  mother  this  respect  for  the  soul  within  the 
clothes  and  could  detect  its  presence  in  the  garb  of 
the  convict,  the  rags  of  a  beggar,  the  fustian  of  the 
laborer,  or  the  raiment  of  a  king.  The  fearless  candor 
and  helpful  love  of  human  beings  that  made  Susannah 
"Wesley  the  preacher  for  the  poor  of  Epworth  reap- 
peared in  her  son,  and  made  him  the  apostle  of  Eng- 
land. If  the  mother  had  lived  in  Lambeth  Palace, 
she  would  have  charmed  by  her  beauty,  her  dignity 
and  grace  of  speech,  her  strength  of  mind  and  char- 
acter ;  and  her  touch  would  have  quickened  the  Church 
of  England.  She  spent  her  days,  many  of  them,  in 
cruel  poverty  at  Epworth;  but  through  her  children 
she  blessed  the  human  race. 

All  the  children  of  Samuel  and  Susannah  Wesley 
were  clever,  but  John  was  most  like  his  mother.  He 
was  intellectual  without  affection  or  display.  His 
opinions  are  often  unconventional  and  daring,  whether 
they  relate  to  philosophy,  to  theology,  to  politics  or  art 
or  literature.  The  annotations  to  Shakespeare,  which 
his  scandalized  executor  destroyed,  his  delight  in 
Swift's  "Tale  of  a  Tub,"  for  which  his  charming 
sister  Martha  scolded  him,  his  remarkable  edition  of 
Milton's  "Paradise  Lost,"  his  collection  of  moral  and 
sacred  poems,  reveal  the  wide  range  of  his  literary 
sympathies;  his  brief  introduction  to  his  little  dic- 
tionary is  only  one  specimen  of  a  wit — trenchant, 
tantalizing,  chuckling.  He  could  preach  in  German 
and  in  French,  in  Spanish  and  in  Italian,  and  when 


214  IN  MEMORIAM 

Oxford,  with  her  classical  traditions,  was  absolutely 
indifferent  to  physical  science,  he  was  trying  experi- 
ments in  optics  and  devouring  eagerly  the  writings  of 
Benjamin  Franklin.  Demanding  reasons  for  every- 
thing, even  when  a  child,  every  drop  of  his  blood,  red 
with  his  mother's  independence,  he  might  have  wasted 
his  powers  in  controversy,  if  an  intense  appreciation 
of  life  had  not  taught  him  the  worthlessness  of  un- 
applied opinions.  He  found  finally  better  use  for  his 
logic,  his  eloquence,  and  his  wit,  and  retired  serenely 
from  the  disputations  into  which  he  had  been  de- 
coyed by  the  intensity  of  his  convictions,  the  attacks 
of  opponents,  and  his  consciousness  of  dialectical  dex- 
terity. He  was  intellectually  inquisitive  and  acquisi- 
tive; not  subtle  or  profound,  but  acute,  candid  and 
comprehensive.  He  read  books  of  all  kinds,  walking, 
riding,  and  occasionally  sitting  down.  Leisure  and  he 
parted  company  quite  early.  He  compiled  books  upon 
theology,  history  and  science,  boldly  altering  and 
abridging  to  bring  them  within  the  poor  man's  purse 
and  understanding.  He  admired  every  kind  of  ability, 
including  that  of  David  Garrick.  But  he  ridiculed 
unreality,  smiling  alike  at  the  vulgarity  of  the  con- 
ceited "bawling"  exhorter,  and  the  pomposity  of 
the  rhetorical  French  preacher,  and  declared  with  a 
chuckle  that  he  was  not  shallow  enough  to  satisfy  a 
polite  congregation.  The  strain  of  mysticism  in  him 
was  of  the  intellect  rather  than  of  the  soul.  "There 
are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamed 
of  in  our  philosophy !"    This  he  perceived  with  Shake- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  215 

speare  and  Plato  rather  than  felt  with  Jacob  Boehme 
and  George  Fox.  His  Oxford  training  made  him 
expert  in  philosophy  and  theology,  although  it 
obscured  more  than  it  explained  the  Bible;  yet  we 
have  his  word  for  it  that  his  opinions  changed  but 
little  after  his  fortieth  year.  There  was  indeed  no 
pliability  in  this  singularly  receptive  nature;  his 
career  and  conduct  were  influenced  greatly  by  his 
environment;  but  the  man  himself  remained  the 
same. 

The  same  yet  not  the  same.  The  change  wrought 
in  John  Wesley,  like  the  change  in  Moses,  or  like  the 
change  in  Luther,  to  whose  words  it  was  partly  due — 
"the  strange  warming  of  the  heart"  was  a  change  of 
feeling,  not  a  change  of  will.  It  was  the  meeting  of 
the  human  and  divine  in  rapturous  recognition. 
Those  who  think  conversion  a  volitional  act  may  learn 
to  distinguish  the  spirit  of  bondage  from  the  spirit  of 
adoption  when  they  consider  John  Wesley  and  St. 
Paul.  Both  of  these  in  their  earlier  days  thought 
verily  that  they  were  doing  God  service;  both,  how- 
ever, lived  in  the  spirit  of  bondage  and  were  the 
slaves  of  the  law ;  both  were  afraid. 

This  change  of  feeling,  this  expulsion  of  fear  by 
love,  marked  an  epoch  in  the  life  of  Wesley  and  the 
world.  It  was  a  return  to  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 
A  false  conception  of  piety  had  repressed  and  almost 
ruined  Wesley's  cheerfulness.  He  had  been  exact  in 
morals,  punctilious  in  ritual,  rigid  in  self-denial,  help- 
ful to  the  needy,  eager  to  do  good ;  but  after  all,  only 


216  IN  MEMORIAM 

a  scrupulous  and  timid  servant.  Now  he  heard  him- 
self hailed  as  a  son;  an  unspeakable  gladness  thrilled 
him;  and  this  he  could  not  contain.  Exulting  over 
what  seemed  to  him  and  his  brother  Charles  to  be  a 
revelation,  they  went  to  extremes.  "I  wonder  the 
people  did  not  stone  us,"  John  afterwards  declared. 
But  enthusiasm  for  righteousness  and  religious  joy 
could  do  little  harm  in  the  days  of  Fielding  and 
Hogarth  and  Foote  and  Smollett.  "Johnson,"  says 
Thackeray,  "shamed  Englishmen  out  of  their  irreli- 
gion."  He  did ;  some  of  them.  But  the  Wesleys  and 
Whitefield  and  the  revival  preachers  shook  the  Eng- 
lish masses  with  good  news,  with  the  offer  of  a  present 
heaven,  of  an  interchange  of  love,  divine  and  human. 
To  organize  this  rapture  was  Wesley's  great  achieve- 
ment ;  to  convert  it  into  permanent  power  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  world ;  to  multiply  it  into  a  universal  joy. 
No  one  ever  perceived  more  clearly  how  easily  such 
rapture  runs  to  waste;  hence  his  differences  with  the 
Moravians.  No  one  ever  planned  more  wisely  to  util- 
ize and  to  increase  such  rapture  by  constant  activity. 
The  machinery  of  Methodism  grew;  it  was  not  made 
to  order.  All  great  machinery  grows.  But  the  growth 
is  never  wild.  Intelligence  directs  each  improve- 
ment to  a  definite  end.  Wesley's  temperament  was 
active.  He  had  inherited  his  father's  restlessness ;  but 
he  had  his  mother's  steady  will.  He  had  his  father's 
poetic  feeling,  but  his  mother's  practical  sense;  his 
father's  gift  for  expression  and  his  mother's  genius 
for  command.     These  combined  to  make  him  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  217 

greatest  traveler,  the  oftenest  preacher,  and  the  firm- 
est ruler  in  England.  It  is  an  extravagance  to  say 
that  he  could  do  what  he  pleased  with  his  people; 
there  were  frequent  oppositions  and  many  defections. 
But  in  spite  of  them  he  controlled  absolutely  an  in- 
creasing company  who  would  swallow  his  physic  or 
come  to  be  electrified,  bought  his  books  and  kept  his 
rules,  built  his  chapels  and  sang  the  Wesley  hymns, 
preached  his  doctrines,  helped  in  his  charities  and 
philanthropies,  and  accepted  his  counsels  in  domestic 
and  national  affairs;  who  were  in  short  the  religious 
and  moral  dynamos  of  England  from  which  flashed 
streams  of  living  fire. 

Wesley's  theology  accordingly  was  insistently  prac- 
tical. At  Oxford  he  studied  the  fathers.  William 
Law  led  him  to  the  mystics.  His  contact  with  the 
Moravians  and  his  knowledge  of  German  led  him  to 
Luther  and  to  Bengel.  But  in  this,  as  in  so  many 
things,  his  mother  predominated.  Her  great  heart 
rebelled  against  prenatal  decrees  whether  of  perdition 
or  of  pretention;  her  pure  conscience  shrank  from 
the  contempt  so  frequently  poured  by  the  Calvinists 
of  her  day  upon  all  good  works  as  "filthy  rags."  It 
was  after  her  heart  that  her  son  John  said  to  White- 
field,  "Why  try  to  prove  that  God  is  worse  than  the 
Devil?  Satan  tempts  only;  he  compels  no  one  to 
sin."  Even  Toplady  attacked  Wesley  for  his  insist- 
ence upon  outward  righteousness,  and  the  line 

"Nothing  in  my  hand  I  bring" 
is  but  the  softened  echo  of  a  very  bitter  controversy. 


218  IN  MEMOEIAM 

As  a  Biblical  scholar  Wesley  was  far  behind  his 
younger  friend,  Adam  Clarke ;  yet  he  was  surprisingly 
bold  in  many  of  his  notes  to  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment, while  he  had  no  patience  with  the  uncandid 
exegesis  that,  instead  of  explaining,  explains  away  the 
text.  The  collateral  parts  of  Scripture  hardly  inter- 
ested him.  He  was  absorbed  by  the  central  truths. 
These  could  be  verified.  Experience  sustained,  clari- 
fied, illuminated  them.  The  scaffolding  is  not  the 
temple.  "The  Lord  God  and  the  Lamb  are  the 
temple."  The  God  that  built  the  world  and  rules  the 
nations,  that  rescues  the  oppressed  and  breaks  in 
pieces  the  proud ;  the  God  that  justifies  by  a  faith  that 
is  fruitful  and  fills  the  heart  with  hope,  who  was  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself  and  who  is 
now  visible  to  the  pure  in  heart,  perfecting  his  chil- 
dren in  love;  the  God  that  creates  and  controls  and 
convicts  and  converts,  that  never  forgets  the  lowly 
and  works  all  things  together  for  good  to  them  that 
love  (him — Father,  Son,  and  Spirit;  this  was  /to 
Wesley  the  temple  of  revelation,  the  sum  and  splen- 
dor of  the  Scriptures.  To  verify  them  one  must  find 
this  only  triune  God  to  the  joy  and  strength  of  one's 
soul;  to  prove  them  one  must  accomplish  the  Divine 
Will  that  they  reveal,  in  regenerated  homes,  and  trans- 
figured workshops,  and  redeemed  communities,  and 
ennobled  nations;  get  this  will  done  on  earth  as  in 
heaven.  It  would  do  Wesley's  followers  no  harm  to 
discover  that  they  have  narrowed  his  conception  of 
God  and  sadly  neglected  his  ethical  ideals.     Nay,  it 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  219 

will  do  them  great  good  to  restore  these  in  their 
grandeur  and  their  purity  and  to  recognize  the  un- 
faltering courage  with  which  he  applied  them  to  the 
burning  questions  of  his  time;  to  the  slave  trade,  to 
the  treatment  of  prisoners  and  of  paupers,  to  the  care 
of  orphans  and  the  cure  of  the  sick  and  the  abolition 
of  vice;  to  the  help  of  the  struggling,  the  defense  of 
the  weak  and  the  education  of  the  people.  He  would 
like,  he  said,  "to  join  hands  with  God  to  help  the  poor 
man  live."  Yet  he  never  condoned  a  cruelty  or  a  cow- 
ardice or  a  crime,  deeply  as  he  pitied  and  loved  the 
erring  and  the  sinful. 

Wesley's  theology  was  by  no  means  free  from  in- 
consistency, neither  was  his  career.  But  like  every 
great  leader  he  suffers  from  the  appellants  who  would 
shelter  their  absurdities  under  his  authority.  His 
career,  however,  when  studied  chronologically,  is  beau- 
tifully coherent;  if  he  wavers,  it  is  as  a  ship  wavers 
when  the  billows  are  angry  and  the  winds  contrary; 
he  yields  as  the  skillful  captain  must  to  the  compelling 
storm. 

He  started  out  early  "to  do  a  little  good  in  the 
world."  He  was  partly  guided,  partly  driven,  to  do  it 
in  strange  ways.  The  parochial  system  of  England 
had  no  place  for  him,  so  he  made  "the  world  his 
parish."  He  loved  the  church  of  his  country,  but  the 
bishops  had  no  use  for  his  societies  and  were  blind  to 
their  opportunity.  He  loved  the  liturgy,  but  necessity 
drove  him  to  pray  extempore.  He  loved  the  indoor 
service,  but  necessity  drove  him  to  preach  in  the  field 


220  IN  MEMORIAM 

and  in  the  churchyard.  The  people  were  famished  for 
the  gospel;  he  organized  lay  preachers  to  give  them 
bread,  and  societies  to  unite  them  in  Christian  fellow- 
ship. These  societies  and  preachers  in  England  and 
America,  impatient  of  neglect  and  opposition,  clam- 
ored for  separate  existence;  he  struggled  hard  to  save 
them  to  the  church,  and  then,  real  statesman  that  he 
was,  furthered  their  separation  to  prevent  their  dis- 
ruption. His  attitude  toward  innovation  was  thor- 
oughly English ;  he  recoiled  invariably.  But  his  mind 
moved  swiftly  and  his  heart  was  pure.  He  had  none 
of  the  fatal  obstinacy  that  damaged  Luther  and  ruined 
Napoleon.  He  was  not  a  genius;  not  even  an  intel- 
lectual giant.  But  he  was  a  man  of  rare  gifts,  touched 
by  the  hand  of  God ;  the  noblest  child  of  a  remarkable 
family,  trained  to  righteousness  at  home  and  educated 
in  the  best  schools  of  his  country.  These  gifts,  this 
companionship,  this  training  developed  a  character  of 
uncertain  promise  until  a  sublime  moment  opened  for 
him  a  unique  career.  For  the  splendor  of  God  in  John 
Wesley  is  the  absolute  fearlessness  with  which  from 
that  hour  of  "the  warming  of  his  heart"  he  followed 
his  conscience.  He  was  not  strong ;  he  had  more  than 
one  hemorrhage ;  but  he  dreaded  not  pain,  nor  illness, 
nor  death.  He  was  not  rich,  but  he  gave  away  a  for- 
tune; he  was  reviled  and  slandered  shamefully,  but 
he  committed  his  reputation  to  God  as  he  had  trusted 
his  body  to  him  when  stones  and  curses  filled  the  air. 
Robbed  of  domestic  happiness,  partly  by  the  action  of 
others,  partly  by  his  own  unwisdom,  he  was  never  sour, 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  22i 

nor  melancholy,  nor  envious,  nor  seclusive.  His  rela- 
tions to  brothers  and  sisters  were  frank  and  independ- 
ent, and  at  times  enchantingly  gracious,  as  at  the 
marriage  of  his  brother  Charles.  His  presence  bright- 
ened every  home  that  he  entered,  and  children  de- 
lighted in  his  talk.  Crowds  greeted  him  in  his  old 
age  eager  to  see,  though  they  could  not  hear  him. 
His  last  spoken  desire  was  that  his  friends  should 
scatter  broadcast  a  sermon  that  he  had  just  written  on 
the  Love  of  God;  the  strange  warming  of  the  heart 
lasted  to  the  end ! 

Shall  one  magnify  or  minimize  his  natural  endow- 
ments? Neither,  as  the  Lord  liveth.  Rejoice  rather 
that  his  powers,  great  or  small,  were  given  unre- 
servedly to  "doing  a  little  good  in  the  world."  Rejoice 
rather  that  the  grace  of  God  multiplied  them  into 
miracles  of  beneficent  activity. 


JOHN  WESLEY,  PREACHER  OF 
SCRIPTURAL  CHRISTIANITY 


JOHN  WESLEY,  PEEACHER  OF  SCRIPTURAL 
CHRISTIANITY* 

"WHEN  John  Wesley  was  dying  it  pleased  God  to 
smooth  his  pillow  with  pleasant  dreams ;  he  imagined 
that  he  was  preaching  or  leading  class;  faint  mur- 
murs for  the  most  part  moved  his  lips,  but  sometimes 
when  his  mind  seemed  brightened  by  the  vision  of  a 
multitude,  his  voice  astonished  those  about  him  by  its 
strength.  God  was  beautifully  gracious  to  arrange  it 
so ;  to  order  all  things  so  that  his  indefatigable 
preacher  should  enter  heaven  preaching ;  and  that  his 
last  words :  "The  best  of  all  is  God  is  with  us,"  might 
be  alike  his  greeting  to  the  company  he  entered  and 
his  farewell  to  the  company  he  left  behind  him. 

The  fact  is  interesting  and  instructive  for  another 
reason :  it  teaches  in  the  most  impressive  way  what  to 
Wesley  himself  was  the  heart  of  his  activity.  He  was, 
amid  all  his  multifarious  industries,  ever  the  preacher 
of  God's  Word  and  the  shepherd  of  God's  flock.  What- 
ever may  be  said  about  him  as  statesman  and  scholar, 
as  writer  and  educator  and  philanthropist,  serves  to 
obscure  rather  than  to  illuminate  him  unless  his 
beloved  chief  activity  is  made  the  explanation  of  it  all. 
Much  that  has  been  written  about  him  aforetime; 
much  that  has  been  written  about  him  recently  mis- 


*  An  address  before  the  Rock  River  Annual  Conference  at 
Aurora,  Illinois,  October  11,  1903. 

225 


226  IN  MEMOEIAM 

conceives  the  man  because  it  lacks  acquaintance  and 
sympathy  with  the  preacher. 

The  historian,  to  be  sure,  must  measure  the  great 
man  by  the  effects  that  he  produces  upon  his  own  and 
subsequent  ages ;  but  the  historian  never,  if  he  under- 
stands his  business,  attributes  all  of  these  effects  to 
conscious  design.  He  knows  that  human  agents  pro- 
duce results  that  often  surpass  and  often  differ  from 
their  intentions  and  their  expectations.  He  knows, 
too,  that  the  mightiest  results  have  been  achieved/ by 
men  so  wholly  taken  up  with  present  duty  that  they 
have  conceived  of  the  future  in  the  vaguest,  though 
most  magnificent  fashion;  conceived  of  it  as  the 
soldier  who  obeys  orders  eagerly,  conceives  of  the 
victory  to  be  achieved  by  his  commander.  These  are 
they  before  whom  the  future  floats  as  the  great  white 
throne  of  God.  These  are  they  that  co-operate  in  the 
truest  sense  with  the  Great  Marshal  of  events;  the 
Maker  and  Builder  of  human  destiny. 

And  John  Wesley  was  of  these  among  the  chief. 
In  the  sense  in  which  most  public  men  are  statesmen, 
he  was  not  a  statesman  at  all.  Seldom  has  anyone 
taken  so  little  thought  for  the  morrow;  seldom  has 
anyone  seen  so  clearly  and  fought  so  bravely  the  evil 
of  today;  seldom  has  anyone  so  daringly  placed  first 
the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  righteousness  thereof; 
seldom  has  anyone  so  confidently  expected  God  to 
vindicate  the  conduct  of  an  honest  servant  by  giving 
increase  to  his  labor. 

If,  then,  we  would  arrive  at  the  man  himself,  if 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  227 

we  would  know  what  kind  of  human  being  it  was  to 
whom  God  gave  this  increase,  we  must  subtract  from 
his  labor  all  that  God  has  added  to  it  and  study  the 
laborer  that  remains.  We  shall  find  him  simple  and 
sublime;  simple  as  a  child  in  his  conception  of  his 
calling,  sublime  as  a  seraph  almost  in  the  faith  with 
which  he  accepts  and  prosecutes  it. 

This  calling  was  to  preach  God's  word  wherever  he 
could  do  the  most  good.  Can  anything  be  simpler 
than  that?  There  were  men  in  England,  good  men, 
too,  who  in  those  days  set  out  to  be  bishops;  there 
were  also  men  in  England,  and  for  a  time  John 
Wesley  was  among  them,  who  set  out  to  be  great 
scholars  and  thinkers;  there  were  in  England  saints 
like  William  Law  and  John  Fletcher  who  accepted 
humbly  the  work  that  fell  to  their  hands,  seeking 
no  other  opportunities.  But  John  Wesley  faced  a 
singular  condition.  "I  must  preach,"  he  said  to 
himself;  "I  am  ordained  to  preach  by  the  authority 
of  the  church,  which,  so  far  as  it  means  anything, 
is  the  authority  of  God.  I  am  ordained  to  preach  by 
the  inward  witness  which  has  given  me  a  message 
that  burns  like  fire  in  my  brain.  Where  shall  I 
preach  when  the  churches  are  closed  against  me  ?  To 
whom  shall  I  preach  if  not,  like  my  father,  to  the 
people  of  a  parish?"  The  answer  that  came  was 
simple  and  yet  by  no  means  obvious  at  first :  "I  must 
preach  where  I  can  do  the  most  good." 

For  there  is  a  widespread  opinion  that  Wesley 
liked  the  kind  of  life  to  which  the  grace  of  God  con- 


228  IN  MEMOKIAM 

strained  him.  But  this  is  a  mistake.  That  he  liked 
preaching  is  true  enough;  but  that  he  liked  field 
preaching  he  denied  frequently.  Quite  late  in  life 
he  declares  that  it  is  still  a  cross  to  him.  He  liked, 
he  said  a  fine  church  and  a  soft  cushion,  and  though 
he  spoke  banteringly  of  polite  congregations,  he  might 
easily  have  reconciled  himself  to  administering  the 
See  of  Canterbury  had  he  conferred  with  flesh  and 
blood.  Marvelous  to  tell  to  his  successors,  John 
Wesley's  thoughts  never  took  that  direction;  and  the 
full  significance  of  his  answer  to  Joseph  Butler,  then 
Bishop  of  Bristol,  cannot  be  estimated  until  we 
remember  the  intellectual  greatness  of  the  man  to 
whom  it  was  made  and  the  absolute  sacrifice  of  every 
church  emolument  and  dignity  that  it  involved.  There 
is  a  pathos  in  this  reply  to  the  famous  author  of  the 
"Analogy"  quite  too  deep  for  tears — the  pathos  of  a 
soul  struggling  with  ecclesiastical  restraints  and  yet 
longing  to  justify  his  conduct  to  a  mind  that  he 
respected  and  to  which  he  had  appealed  for  naught: 
"My  lord,  my  business  on  earth  is  to  do  what  good 
I  can.  Wherever,  therefore,  I  can  do  the  most  good, 
there  must  I  stay,  so  long  as  I  think  so.  At  present 
I  think  I  can  do  most  good  here,  therefore  here  I 
stay.  Being  ordained  a  priest  by  the  commission  I 
then  received,  I  am  a  priest  of  the  Church  Universal ; 
and  being  ordained  as  a  fellow  of  a  College,  I  was  not 
limited  to  any  particular  cure,  but  have  an  indeter- 
minate commission  to  preach  the  word  of  God  in  any 
part  of  the   Church  of  England.     I  conceive  not, 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  229 

therefore,  that  in  preaching  here  by  this  commission 
I  break  any  human  law.  When  I  am  convinced  I  do, 
then  it  will  be  time  to  ask,  Shall  I  obey  God  or  man  ? 
But  if  I  should  be  convinced  in  the  meanwhile  that 
I  could  advance  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation 
of  souls  in  any  other  place  more  than  in  Bristol,  in 
that  hour,  by  God's  help,  I  will  go  hence,  which  till 
then  I  may  not  do." 

All  of  John  Wesley's  previous  life  shines  concentric 
in  that  outbreak  of  splendor;  all  the  courage  of  his 
fearless  paternal  and  maternal  ancestors;  all  the 
influences  of  his  training  at  home  and  school  and 
college;  all  the  impulses  nourished  and  developed  in 
the  Holy  Club  and  in  his  intercourse  with  William 
Law ;  all  the  power  and  the  joy  of  the  strange  warm- 
ing of  the  heart  in  Aldersgate  Street;  all  the  reflec- 
tions that  perturbed  his  active  mind  among  the 
Moravians;  all  his  fresh  experience  of  God's  work- 
ing in  him  and  in  those  to  whom  he  preached ;  all  the 
new  light  that  was  breaking  from  God's  Word — all 
these  were  gathered  together  into  that  one  luminous 
decision. 

How  thrilling  the  tone  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  rising 
obedient  to  the  Heavenly  Vision !  But  the  music  of 
it  is  nothing  compared  to  that  of  the  overmastering 
outcry :  None  of  these  things  move  me,  neither  count 
I  my  life  dear  unto  myself,  so  that  I  might  finish  my 
course  with  joy  and  the  ministry  which  I  have  received 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  to  testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace 
of  God. 


230  IN  MEMORIAM 

How  beautiful  is  John  Wesley  listening  to  the 
words  of  Luther  until  his  heart  glows  with  divine 
fire !  But  how  much  grander  is  he  answering  so 
firmly  and  tranquilly  the  greatest  churchman  of  his 
time! 

It  is  said  of  Luther  that  when  Staupitz  had  beaten 
down  every  other  objection  to  the  Wittenberg  call, 
Luther  pleaded  his  ill-health.  In  spite  of  Wesley's 
long  life,  he  was  far  from  robust  in  his  younger  days ; 
and  he  might  have  urged  a  similar  plea  when  White- 
field  urged  him  to  preach  in  the  open  air.  Talking 
once  with  his  brother  Charles,  the  poet  exclaimed, 
"If  God  would  give  me  wings  I  would  fly."  "If  God 
commanded  me  to  fly,"  John  quietly  returned,  "I 
would  trust  him  for  the  wings."  There  you  have  the 
measure  of  the  man.  He  did  not  plead  his  diminutive 
stature  or  his  slender  frame ;  he  had  not  the  wings  of 
Mercury  or  the  port  of  Jove;  and  his  throat  was 
weak  for  he  had  more  than  once  expectorated  blood; 
and  the  weather  was  cold  and  the  winds  were  chill 
and  the  crowds  were  enormous  and  perhaps  unruly. 
But  the  voice  said  "Cry,"  and  "The  Lord,"  says 
Whitefield  in  his  extravagant  way,  "gave  him  ten 
thousand  times  more  success  than  he  has  given  me." 

I  am  not  of  those  that  depreciate  Whitefield.  The 
results  of  his  preaching  were  wonderful  and  the 
increase  of  them  still  continues.  But  he  and  John 
Wesley  differed  as  much  as  Paul  and  Apollos  and 
somewhat,  I  fancy,  in  the  same  way.  No  one  prob- 
ably ever  listened  to  Apollos  or  to  Whitefield  without 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  231 

wondering  at  the  speaker's  charm.  But  Paul  and 
Wesley  had  each  of  them  that  combination  of  self- 
effacement  and  self-revelation  which  is  the  secret  of 
persuasive  speech;  self-effacement  in  that  they 
stripped  themselves  of  every  hindrance  to  their  sole 
aim,  self-revelation  in  that  they  laid  bare  their  own 
hearts  in  order  that  they  might  the  better  win  access 
to  their  hearers  and  achieve  their  great  design.  The 
quick  eye  of  Horace  Walpole  detected  the  consummate 
art  of  which  Wesley  was  an  easy  master;  but  that 
elegant  trifler  was  stoneblind  to  the  purpose  to  which 
that  art  was  always  tributary.  This  purpose,  however, 
must  rank  first  in  any  study  of  John  Wesley  as  a 
preacher;  to  dwarf  it  is  to  misunderstand  both  him 
and  the  law  of  God  that  regulated  the  increase  of 
his  labor. 

Wesley  described  this  purpose  often  as  doing  good. 
This  was  a  favorite  phrase,  and  when  we  take  his 
preaching  in  all  its  range  of  years  and  topics,  it  is  by 
far  the  best  description  of  it.  He  was  always  and 
everywhere  the  preacher  and  promoter  of  righteous- 
ness; so  that  the  bitterest  controversy  in  which  he 
ever  was  entangled  grew  out  of  his  insistence  upon 
good  works.  The  General  Rules  are  an  indestructible 
monument  of  the  organized  conscience  of  early  Meth- 
odism. We  are  to  do  no  harm ;  we  are  to  do  all  pos- 
sible good ;  we  are,  therefore,  to  attend  diligently  the 
means  of  grace. 

Looking  closely  into  this  favorite  phrase  of  our 
founder  and  our  father,  we  discover  that  this  right- 


232  IN  MEMORIAM 

eousness,  like  that  proclaimed  by  Paul,  is  the  right- 
eousness of  faith,  the  goodness  that  flows  from  a  life 
hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

In  the  preface  to  the  sermons  published  in  1747 
he  states  that  these  contain  the  substance  of  what 
he  has  been  preaching  for  eight  or  nine  years  past. 
Here,  then,  we  can  safely  explore  its  characteristics. 
For  what  Dr.  Eigg  says  about  the  difference  in  his 
written  sermons  and  his  oral  preaching  hardly  applies 
to  these  earlier  publications;  many  of  these  were 
preached  substantially  as  printed,  varied,  of  course, 
as  congregations  might  require.  A  comparison  of 
them  with  the  texts  and  notices  of  his  preaching  that 
abound  in  his  journals  reveals  clearly  the  central 
thought  which  determines  every  utterance.  This  is 
set  forth  in  what  intellectually  considered  is  the 
greatest  of  Wesley's  productions,  the  sermon  entitled : 
"The  Original,  Nature,  Properties  and  Use  of  the 
Law."  Those  who  deny  that  Wesley  is  a  theologian 
have  never  read  this  splendid  discourse.  They  might 
as  well  deny  the  title  to  St.  Paul.  The  conception 
of  the  moral  law  here  displayed  is  the  richest  fruit 
of  Wesley's  thinking  and  experience.  It  is,  indeed, 
derived  from  St.  Paul;  but  the  development  of  it  is 
at  once  lucid,  original  and  lofty.  With  the  sim- 
plicity of  Goldsmith,  the  perspicuity  of  Paley,  and  an 
eloquence  worthy  of  Richard  Hooker,  he  describes 
the  moral  law  as  "unchangeable  reason  and  unalter- 
able rectitude;"  he  traces  it  back  of  Moses  and  of 
Adam  and  of  the  angels  to  the  eternal  mind  of  God 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  233 

"as  the  everlasting  fitness  of  all  things  that  are  or 
ever  were  created."  "I  am  sensible,"  he  adds,  "what 
a  shortness  and  even  impropriety  there  is  in  these 
and  all  other  human  expressions  when  we  endeavor 
by  these  faint  pictures  to  shadow  out  the  deep  things 
of  God.  Nevertheless  we  have  no  other  way  during 
this  our  infant  state  of  existence." 

"The  law  of  God  is  a  copy  of  the  eternal  mind,  a 
transcript  of  the  divine  nature;  yea,  it  is  the  finest 
offspring  of  the  Everlasting  Father,  the  brightest 
efflux  of  His  essential  wisdom,  the  visible  beauty  of 
the  Most  High.  With  regard  to  man  it  was  co-eval 
with  his  nature;  but  with  regard  to  the  elder  sons  of 
God,  it  shone  in  full  splendor  or  ever  the  mountains 
were  brought  forth  or  the  earth  and  the  round  world 
were  made." 

It  is,  however,  the  fourth  section  of  this  remark- 
able discourse  that  reveals  the  theological  basis  of 
Wesley's  ethical  power.  This  section  discusses  the 
use  of  the  Law.  Its  first  use  is  to  convince  the  world 
of  sin,  to  slay  the  sinner;  the  second  use  of  it  is  to 
bring  him  unto  life,  unto  Christ  that  he  may  live. 
It  drives  us  by  force  rather  than  draws  us  by  love. 
And  yet  love  is  the  spring  of  all.  The  third  use  of 
it  is  to  keep  us  alive;  it  is  the  grand  means  whereby 
the  blessed  Spirit  prepares  the  believers  for  larger 
communications  of  his  spirit.  "I  cannot,"  he  con- 
tinues, "spare  the  law  one  moment  no  more  than 
I  can  spare  Christ;  seeing  I  now  want*  it  as  much 

•  Want=need. 


234  IN  MEMOEIAM 

to  keep  me  to  Christ  as  I  ever  wanted  it  to  bring  me 
to  him.  Indeed  each  is  continually  sending  me  to 
the  other,  the  law  to  Christ  and  Christ  to  the  law. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  height  and  depth  of  the  law 
constrain  me  to  fly  to  the  love  of  God  in  Christ;  on 
the  other,  the  love  of  God  endears  the  law  to  me 
above  gold  or  precious  stones/' 

When  I  hear  even  Methodist  ministers  lauding  the 
ethical  superiority  of  modern  preaching  I  wonder 
from  what  materials  they  have  framed  their  concep- 
tion of  John  Wesley.  The  glittering  ethical  dissua- 
sives  and  exhortations  now  the  fashion  are  a  return 
to  the  powerless  platitudes  of  Scotch  Hugh  Blair; 
they  are  pretty  talk  for  parade  and  sale;  but  Wesley 
preached  to  save.  No  man  had  greater  contempt  for 
what  in  his  time  and  in  ours  is  often  applauded  as  a 
gospel  sermon;  and  he  uttered  that  contempt  in 
sharper  words  than  I  would  dare  to  use.f  But  this 
was  merely  incidental ;  the  key-note  to  his  own  preach- 
ing and  the  power  of  it  was  this:  The  one  way  to 
Christ  is  knowledge  of  the  Law  of  God. 

In   his    journal   he    tells    us    of   preaching    from 


t  Here  are  two  specimens  of  it : 

"If  we  only  join  faith  and  works  in  our  preaching  we 
shall  not  fail  of  a  blessing.  But  of  all  preaching  what  is 
usually  called  gospel  preaching  is  the  most  useless,  if  not 
the  most  mischievous. ' ' — Letter  to  Charles  Wesley. 

"Let  some  pert,  conceited  fellow  bawl  out  some  phrases 
about  the  blood  and  the  people  cry,  'What  a  fine  gospel 
sermon  1 '  ' ' 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  235 

his  favorite  text:  Jesus  Christ,  who  of  God  is 
made  unto  us  wisdom,  righteousness,  sanctifica- 
tion  and  redemption;  he  tells  us,  too,  how  he 
was  moved  with  compassion  for  the  rich  who 
were  present,  to  whom  he  made  a  particular  appli- 
cation. And  this  brings  us  to  another  trait  of 
John  Wesley,  the  preacher.  He  talked  to  those  before 
him ;  he  preached  not  at  but  to  the  people.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  his  manly  soul  than  "roasting" 
the  absent  for  the  delectation  of  his  listeners.  He 
aimed  to  convict  and  to  comfort  those  at  hand.  His 
piercing  eye  searched  the  countenances  that  crowded 
round  him,  quick  to  notice  every  change  of  feature; 
and  though  he  was  never  in  a  hurry  with  his  applica- 
tions, he  never  failed  to  make  them  and  to  drive  them 
home.  No  wonder  that  when  his  soul  was  stirred 
within  him,  as  on  that  September  night  at  Gwennap, 
surrounded  by  ten  thousand  people,  none  speaking, 
stirring  or  scarce  looking  aside,  he  could  not  conclude 
until  it  was  so  dark  that  they  could  hardly  see  one 
another.  Nor  was  he  satisfied  to  preach  in  public 
only ;  he  followed  up  his  preaching  with  tender  eager- 
ness and  was  as  keen  to  urge  his  disciples  to  perfec- 
tion as  to  charm  the  unsaved  to  new  life  and  happi- 
ness in  Jesus  Christ. 

One  of  the  earliest  printed  sermons  of  John  Wesley 
is  that  preached  in  St.  Mary's,  Oxford,  eighteen  days 
after  his  strange  warming  of  the  heart,  from  the 
text,  "By  grace  ye  are  saved  through  faith."    Those 


£36  IN  MEMOftlAM 

who  imagine  that  the  glow  of  that  experience  injured 
in  an}'  way  his  fine  ethical  temper  should  read  these 
piercing  words.  "This  faith  is  a  recumbency  upon 
Christ  as  our  atonement  and  our  life  as  given  for 
us  and  living  in  us;  it  is  a  closing  with  Christ  and 
cleaving  to  Him  as  our  wisdom,  righteousness,  sanc- 
tification,  redemption;  in  one  word,  our  salvation/' 
But  what  is  this  salvation  ?  It  is  ( 1 )  a  present  salva- 
tion, (2)  a  salvation  from  original  and  actual,  past 
and  present,  sin  of  the  flesh  and  of  the  spirit,  both 
from  the  guilt  and  power  of  it. 

"Never,"  he  concludes,  "was  the  maintaining  of 
this  doctrine  more  seasonable  than  it  is  this  day. 
Nothing  but  this  can  give  a  check  to  that  immorality 
which  hath  overspread  our  land  like  a  flood.  Can 
you  empty  the  great  deep  drop  by  drop?  Then  you 
may  reform  us  by  dissuasives  from  particular  vices; 
but  let  the  righteousness  which  is  of  God  by  faith  be 
brought  in,  and  so  shall  its  proud  waves  be  stayed. 
There  be  those  that  can  talk  as  sublimely  of  the  law 
as  those  who  have  it  written  by  God  on  the  heart,  but 
take  them  out  of  the  law  into  the  gospel,  begin  with 
the  righteousness  of  faith,  and  those  who  just  now 
appeared  almost  if  not  altogether  Christians  stand 
confessed  the  sons  of  perdition." 

A  sermon  preached  in  1763  on  the  Reformation 
of  Manners  discloses  still  another  trait  of  John  Wes- 
ley's power  as  a  preacher;  his  clear  perception  that 
reforms  are  possible  to  those  only  whose  conduct  is 
nobler  than  their  speech.    There  is  something  divinely 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  237 

touching  in  Wesley's  groaning  after  perfection  and 
his  humility  in  leaving  to  others  the  profession  of 
it.*  The  reason  of  this  paradox  is,  however,  quite 
obvious.  Wesley  weighed  his  words.  He  who  objected 
to  his  people  applying  the  epithet  "dear"  to  God  and 
Christ;  he  who  would  not  insist  upon  another  man's 
using  the  term  "trinity,"  knew  the  full  meaning  of 
the  term  "Christian  perfection."  His  ideal,  scriptural 
and  sensible  as  it  was,  and  his  belief  in  the  power 
of  God  to  work  the  miracle  of  righteousness  when 
and  how  He  pleases,  never  blinded  him  to  his  own 
defects  of  temper,  trifling  as  they  were,  mere  wrinkles 
in  the  garment  of  his  flesh ;  therefore  he  was  cautious 
lest  he  cause  anyone  to  stumble.  But  now  that  his 
entire  life  is  spread  out  before  us  nothing  is  plainer 
than  this:  John  Wesley  lived  according  to  his  doc- 
trine and  the  joy  that  came  to  him  he  valued  as  the 
light  upon  his  pathway,  shining  brighter  and  brighter 
unto  the  perfect  day.  His  experience  never  dwindled  to 
a  recollection  or  even  to  a  cluster  of  recollections ;  he 
expected  God  every  morning  as  certainly  as  he  expected 
daylight,  and  he  never  dreamed  of  asking  anyone  to 
do  aught  for  God  that  he  did  not  gladly  do  himself. 
Think  of  the  old  man  of  eighty-one  "walking  ankle 
deep  through  slush  and  snow  until  his  feet  were 
steeped  in  snow  water  nearly  from  morning  till  eve- 


*  "  I  have  told  all  the  world  I  am  not  perfect  and  yet  you 
allow  me  to  be  a  Methodist.  I  tell  you  flat  I  have  not 
attained  the  character  I  draw.  Will  you  pin  it  upon  me 
in  spite  of  my  teeth  f  *' — John  Wesley  to  Dr.  Dood  in  1767. 


238  IN  MEMORIAM 

ning"  in  order  to  collect  £200  to  get  coal  and  bread 
and  clothes  for  the  poor  of  his  society.  This  is  but 
one  instance  of  sixty  years  of  a  concord  of  deed  with 
word  that  winged  his  utterances  with  electric  fire. 
Cicero  is  right  when  he  says  that  the  perfect  orator 
must  be  bonus  vir,  a  virtuous  man.  His  own  career 
would  not  have  ended  in  an  eclipse  of  blood  if  his 
maxim  had  been  made  splendid  by  his  example. 
Wesley's  doctrine  was.  He  knew  that  to  save  the 
souls  of  others  he  must  get  his  own  saved  and  show 
them  what  salvation  meant  in  all  its  length  and 
breadth  and  height  and  power  and  glory.  Hence  in 
this  sermon  on  the  Eeformation  of  Manners,  he 
describes  with  telling  insight  "what  manner  of  men 
they  ought  to  be  who  engage  in  such  a  design,  and 
the  spirit  and  manner  in  which  it  ought  to  be  pur- 
sued." Idolaters  of  numbers  and  defenders  of  craft 
and  cunning  might  profit  from  his  description. 

A  favorite  quotation  of  John  Wesley's  was  Paul's 
splendid  descriptive  phrase,  "The  Faith  that  works 
by  Love."  Faith  he  had  seen  quite  early  must  dis- 
close itself  in  results ;  but  it  was  the  revelation  of  his 
great  experience  that  the  perfect  efficiency  of  faith 
is  possible  only  in  an  atmosphere  of  love.  Just  as 
the  undulations  needs  an  ethereal  medium  to  produce 
light,  so  faith  needs  this  divine  medium  to  produce 
life;  or  to  take  a  simpler  illustration,  just  as  our 
blood  needs  pure  air  continually,  so  faith  must  renew 
itself  continually  in  the  love  of  God  shed  abroad  in 
the  heart.    Its  miracles  are  wrought  only  through  this 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  239 

replenishing  without  which  it  pines  and  withers  and 
dies.  To  see  how  clearly  Wesley  perceived  this  and 
how  gloriously  he  proclaimed  it,  take  another  of  his 
favorite  themes,  the  Providence  of  God.  Critics  like 
Leslie  Stephen,  saturated  with  the  superficial  idea 
of  law,  so  prevalent  with  a  certain  type  of  modern 
writer,  amuse  themselves  by  poking  fun  at  Wesley's 
references  to  good  and  bad  angels,  and  smile  over 
what  they  deem  his  puerilities.  They  forget  that 
Wesley  simply  insisted  upon  realizing  what  every 
Christian  of  his  generation  pretended  to  believe ;  they 
forget,  moreover,  that  he  shared  these  beliefs  with 
Shakespeare  and  Kepler  and  Milton  and  Bunyan  and 
Bishop  Ken  and  Samuel  Johnson;  besides  they  never 
read  his  sermons  to  note  how  deep  and  solid  after  all 
is  the  basis  of  his  confidence.  "God,"  he  says,  "might 
act  of  course  directly;  he  needs  no  instruments  of 
any  kind;"  angels  or  second  causes  either.  "Do  you 
mean,"  he  argues  in  reply  to  Pope's  famous  line 
"Shall  gravitation  cease  if  I  go  by  ?" — "Do  you  mean 
that  the  providence  of  God  does,  indeed,  extend  to 
all  parts  of  the  earth  with  regard  to  great  and 
singular  events  such  as  the  rise  and  fall  of 
empires;  but  that  the  little  concerns  of  this  or 
that  man  are  beneath  the  notice  of  the  Almighty? 
Then  you  do  not  consider  that  great  and  little  are 
merely  relative  terms  which  have  place  only  with 
respect  to  man.  Nothing  is  small  in  the  sight  of  the 
Almighty  that  in  any  degree  affects  the  welfare  of 
any  that  fear  God  and  work  righteousness.     What 


240  IN  MEMOEIAM 

becomes  then  of  your  general  providence,  exclusive 
of  a  particular?  Let  it  be  forever  rejected  of  men 
as  absurd  self-contradictory  nonsense."  Clothed  in 
our  cumbrous  modern  phrase,  Wesley's  belief  was  in 
the  Immanent  God,  immanent  by  just  such  agents 
and  instruments  as  He  might  choose.  But  to  Wesley 
it  was  a  belief  to  live  by — not  a  resonance  of  words. 
And  he  demonstrated  it  by  a  daring  abandon  of  him- 
self to  God  and  whatever  He  might  determine.  They 
misread  his  journal  who  suppose  that  Wesley  sees 
the  hand  of  God  only  when  things  are  going  well  or 
who  mistake  his  pleasantries  for  solemn  deliverances. 
Wesley  sees  the  hand  of  God  in  all  events,  and  trusts 
Him  in  all  emergencies ;  smiles  and  shudders  are  often 
intermingled  in  his  narrations  for  those  that  under- 
stand him.  But  whether  smiling  at  the  way  in  which 
God  screened  him  by  the  large  woman  sitting  on  his 
lap ;  or  composing  his  epitaph  in  his  fifty-first  year ; 
or  writing  the  story  of  his  final  decay  when  eighty- 
seven,  it  is  always  Immanuel,  God  is  with  us.  If  he 
had  been  struck  by  some  death-dealing  stone  early 
in  his  career,  he  would  have  exclaimed  with  Stephen 
"Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their  charge!"  If  he  had 
been  haled  to  prison  and  held  there  like  St.  Paul  he 
would  have  sung  praises  with  or  without  some  brother 
to  keep  him  company.  He  might  indeed  say  in  later 
life  "I  feel  and  I  grieve,  but  by  the  grace  of  God  I 
fret  at  nothing/'  and  in  the  exuberance  of  his  joy  lose 
all  remembrance  of  his  sorrows,  but  there  had  been 
moments  when  he  needed  all  the  staying  power  of  the 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  241 

presence  of  God  which  he  preached  so  clearly.  His 
soul  was  indeed  so  charged  with  it  that  the  thrill 
of  it  electrified  the  listening  multitudes.  It  was  to 
him  no  glittering  generality.  It  was  the  blood  of 
his  heart  and  the  light  of  his  mind,  and  the  strength 
of  his  will  and  the  peace  of  his  soul. 

The  sermon  that  separated  him  from  the  pulpit  of 
the  University  of  Oxford  is  in  many  respects  the  most 
remarkable  of  these  early  publications.  Like  the  ser- 
mon on  Free  Grace,  its  publication  was  compulsory. 
The  theme  of  it,  Spiritual  Christianity,  connects 
itself  with  the  famous  passage  in  the  preface  to  his 
first  volume  of  sermons  published  in  1747,  where  he 
describes  himself  so  touchingly  as  a  man  of  one  book 
— words  which  were,  so  to  speak,  the  afterglow  of  an 
experience  that  almost  consumed  him  by  its  energy. 

Oxford  University,  professedly  a  Christian  school, 
the  stronghold  of  orthodox  opinion;  Oxford,  that 
should  have  been  a  city  set  upon  a  hill,  a  light  to 
lighten  every  home  in  England;  Oxford,  whose  doc- 
tors of  divinity  were  fierce  to  defend  the  Bible  even 
in  their  cups  and  who  sometimes  defended  it  nobly 
with  logic  and  learning;  Oxford  University  John 
Wesley  knew  to  be  a  residence  of  rakes  and  idlers  and 
debauchees.  The  fellows  of  All  Souls  College  had 
been  taunted  when  he  was  at  Lincoln  in  1733  by  words 
like  these:  "I  would  willingly  next  pay  a  visit  to 
All  Souls  College  if  I  could  find  it.  It  used  to  be 
near  Queen's,  but  if  we  may  judge  from  the  resorts 
of  its  members  it  has  been  translated  over  the  way 


242  IN  MEMORIAM 

and  the  Three  Tuns  Tavern  is  All  Souls  Col- 
lege." These  precious  creatures  had  abandoned  all 
pretense  of  teaching.  Lord  Eldon  saw  a  doctor  of 
divinity,  unable  to  support  himself  except  by  keeping 
one  hand  upon  the  library  building  on  Kadcliffe 
Square,  walking  round  and  round  till  rescued  by  a 
friend.  "Oxford,"  wrote  Cross  to  his  mother  sixty 
years  later,  "is  a  perfect  hell  upon  earth.  What 
chance  is  there  for  an  unfortunate  lad  just  from 
school,  with  no  one  to  watch  and  care  for  him — no 
guide?  I  often  saw  my  tutor  carried  off  perfectly 
intoxicated."  The  Savilian  professor  of  Astronomy 
died  after  drinking  late  at  his  own  house  with  the 
Vice-Chancellor  (who  is  the  actual  head  of  the  Uni- 
versity) and  some  others. 

Wesley  pondered  these  things  in  his  heart,  and 
his  soul  grew  hot  within  him.  He  might  have  escaped 
the  ordeal  by  paying  three  guineas  for  a  substitute; 
he  might  have  escaped  it  by  preaching  a  harmless 
gospel  sermon,  adorned  with  erudition,  polished  and 
pointless,  to  use  his  favorite  phrase,  "orthodox  as — 
the  devil,"  yet  enlivened  with  a  dash  of  the  usual 
enthusiasm.  Or  he  might  have  preached,  as  Joseph 
Butler  would  have  done,  a  lofty  ethical  discourse, 
expounding  subtly  and  with  stately  rhetoric  some 
noble  virtue,  leaving  his  hearers  to  applaud  and  forget 
it.  For  once  in  his  life  he  might  have  donned  the 
French  frippery  of  Massilon  and  Bourdaloue  or  the 
style  of  Scotch  Hugh  Blair,  "that  popular  repre- 
sentative of  the  last  stage  of  theological  decay,  that 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  243 

washed-out  retailer  of  second-hand  commonplaces, 
who  gives  us  the  impression  that  the  real  man  has 
vanished  and  left  nothing  but  a  wig  and  a  gown." 

To  tell  the  truth,  John  Wesley  would  rather  have 
spoken  to  the  rude  multitudes  of  Blackheath  or  Gwen- 
nap  or  to  a  little  company  in  some  upper  room  of 
Oxford.  But  here  was  a  duty  and  an  opportunity. 
Here  in  St.  Mary's,  where  Wiclif  and  Latimer  had 
preached  and  where  Cranmer  had  spoken  the  words 
that  went  far  to  redeem  his  earlier  cowardice,  here 
he  must  take  up  his  cross  and  deliver  his  soul. 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  he  approached  the  task 
without  most  careful  preparation.  The  sermon, 
printed  just  as  it  was  delivered,  shows  in  every  line 
of  it  the  hand  of  a  master.  He  had  measured  exactly 
every  hostile  force  and  with  consummate  skill  had 
engineered  the  way,  parallel  by  parallel,  for  his 
intrepid  application. 

The  galleries  were  crowded  with  undergraduates 
eager  to  see  the  enthusiast,  the  Jacobite,  the  papist, 
the  heretic,  the  hypocrite,  the  knave,  the  Jesuit,  the 
atheist,  the  exorcist,  the  despoiler  of  the  poor,  the 
fanatic*  who  was  destroying  the  Church  of  England 
and  turning  the  kingdom  upside  down.  The  floor 
was  thronged  with  heads  and  fellows  of  colleges,  with 
here  and  there  a  Methodist  praying  God  for  help  and 
grace.  Young  Tom  Warton,  his  eyes  inflamed  with 
genius  and  wine,  was  probably  looking  down  curiously 
from  above;  Wesley's  noble  friend  Isham,  the  rector 


*  All  these  epithets  had  been  applied  to  him  before  he 
preached  this  sermon. 


244  IN  MEMORIAM 

of  Lincoln,  and  the  learned  Conybeare  looked  up 
anxiously  from  among  the  dignitaries;  a  few  old 
pupils  and  companions  sat  expectant  among  the  scof- 
fing men  that  never  knew  the  man  that  they  derided. 
Wesley  had  prayed  that  he  might  speak  with  authority 
— to  use  another  of  his  favorite  phrases — the  author- 
ity of  love.  And  keen  observers  like  Kennicott  noted, 
instantly  he  began,  the  serenity  of  his  features,  the 
commanding  sweetness  of  his  voice,  the  grace  and 
propriety  of  his  few  gestures.  They  noted  likewise 
the  unfolding  of  his  argument,  paragraph  linked  to 
paragraph  by  faultless  reasoning,  for  although 
Wesley's  greatness  as  a  preacher  was  in  the  plainness 
and  loving  severity  with  which  he  applied  the  truth, 
yet  he  never  applied  it  until  he  had  unfolded  it  with 
the  skill  of  which  his  training  had  made  him  master. 
Then,  however,  he  spoke  with  a  plainness,  a  direct- 
ness, a  courage,  a  holy  energy  never  surpassed  in  the 
history  of  preaching. 

At  his  sharp  words:  "Where  does  this  Chris- 
tianity now  exist?  Where,  I  pray,  do  the  Christians 
live?"  there  was  doubtless  a  stir  among  the  under- 
graduates. Satire  was  not  uncommon  in  the  pulpit 
of  St.  Mary's  and  the  lads  would  bend  over  eagerly 
to  listen  and  to  watch  for  shafts  of  ridicule.  But 
Wesley  was  not  there  for  fun.  The  murmur  of 
amusement  in  the  galleries,  the  frowning  upturned 
faces  of  those  below  him  only  provoked  him  to  tones 
of  sorrowful  entreaty.  "Someone  must  use  great 
plainness  of  speech  towards  you.    Who  will  use  this 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  245 

plainness  if  I  do  not?  Therefore  I,  even  I,  will 
speak.  And  I  adjure  you  by  the  living  God  steel 
not  your  breasts  against  receiving  a  blessing  at  my 
hands.  Let  me  ask  you,  in  tender  love  and  in  the 
spirit  of  meekness,  is  this  city  a  Christian  city?  Is 
scriptural  Christianity  found  here  ?  Are  all  the  mag- 
istrates, all  heads  and  governors  of  colleges  and  halls, 
and  their  respective  societies  (not  to  speak  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town)  of  one  heart  and  soul?  Is 
the  love  of  God  shed  abroad  in  our  hearts?  Are  our 
lives  agreeable  thereto  ?  I  entreat  you  to  observe  that 
the  question  is  not  concerning  doubtful  opinions  but 
concerning  the  undoubted  fundamental  branches  of 
our  common  Christianity.  And  for  the  decision 
thereof  I  appeal  to  your  own  consciences,  guided  by 
the  word  of  God."  Never  soldier  bore  himself  more 
bravely  in  the  shock  of  hand-to-hand  encounter. 
Wiclif  and  Latimer  never  uttered  words  more  quick 
and  powerful.  St.  Mary's  since  then  has  echoed  to 
the  eloquence  of  Arnold  and  Newman  and  Liddon 
and  Church ;  but  no  archer  of  them  all  has  sent  such 
flaming  arrows  with  so  true  an  aim. 

0  Oxford !  Oxford !  If  thou  hadst  but  known  the 
day  of  thine  opportunity!  For  the  stone  that  the 
builders  rejected  has  become  the  head  of  the  corner. 
Little  did  John  Wesley  think  when  he  sent  "without 
delay"  the  notes  of  his  sermon  to  the  angry  Vice- 
Chancel  lor  that  a  future  master  of  Balliol  would 
describe  him  to  freshmen  of  the  nineteenth  century 
as  the  Apostle  of  the  whole  English-speaking  race ! 


246  IN  MEMOKIAM 

John  Wesley,  I  repeat,  wrote  of  himself  shortly 
after  this  sermon  on  Scriptural  Christianity  as  a 
man  of  one  book;  but  he  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  of 
his  meaning.  In  the  ordinary  sense  he  was  a  man  of 
many  books  and  I  find  even  in  his  sermons  references 
to  Newton  and  Huyghens,  to  Pascal  and  Hutcheson, 
to  say  nothing  of  quotations  from  theologians  and 
philosophers  of  every  age  and  from  ancient  and 
modern  poets,  all  the  way  from  Anacreon  to  Pope.* 

In  his  sermon  on  the  Imperfection  of  Knowledge 
he  displays  a  remarkable  acquaintance  with  the  grow- 
ing science  of  his  time,  treating  it  with  his  usual 
boldness  and  candor.  Modern  critics  who  scoff  at  his 
mistakes  would  do  well  to  imitate  Helmholtz  in  his 
noble  essay  upon  Goethe's  attempt  to  overthrow  the 
theories  of  Newton.  The  giant  of  German  science 
treats  the  great  but  mistaken  German  poet  with  as 
much  respect  as  candor.  And  Wesley,  who  had  the 
powerful  authority  of  Leibnitz  and  Huyghens  to  sup- 
port him,  might  indeed  be  pardoned  for  balking  at  a 


*  One  of  the  most  striking  and  pathetic  of  these  quota- 
tions was  taken  from  his  lips  by  the  poet  Crabbe,  who  heard 
him  quote  it  in  a  sermon  at  Lowestoft  when  Wesley  was 
eighty-seven  years  old.     The  lines  are  these: 

1 '  Oft  I  am  by  woman  told 
Poor  Anacreon!    Thou  grow'st  old. 
See,  thine  hairs  are  falling  all: 
Poor  Anacreon!    How  they  fall; 
Whether  I  grow  old  or  no, 
By  these  signs  I  do  not  know; 
But  this  I  need  not  to  be  told 
'Tis  time  to  live,  if  I  grow  old." 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  247 

theory  which  had  trying  difficulties  for  Sir  Isaac 
himself.  Michael  Faraday,  I  am  sure,  never  mocked 
the  man  who  was  scoffed  at  by  the  whole  medical 
fraternity  of  his  time  for  his  belief  in  the  curative 
powers  of  electricity;  and  who  certainly  deserves 
respect  from  the  contemporaries  of  Roentgen  and 
Finsen. 

Here,  though,  is  the  notable  thing :  Wesley's 
knowledge  and  reflections  were  never  used  for  display 
but  were  obedient  to  the  truth  of  Holy  Writ. 

"Does  anything  in  this  book  appear  dark  and 
intricate — I  lift  my  heart  to  the  Father  of  lights. 
I  then  search  after  parallel  passages.  I  meditate 
thereon  with  all  the  attention  and  earnestness  of 
which  I  am  capable.  If  any  doubt  remains  I  consult 
those  who  are  experienced  in  the  things  of  God;  and 
then  the  writings  whereby  being  dead,  they  yet  speak." 
In  one  of  the  noblest  of  his  letters  he  insists :  "It  is 
a  fundamental  principle  with  us  that  to  renounce 
reason  is  to  renounce  religion;  that  religion  and  rea- 
son go  hand  in  hand  and  that  all  irrational  religion 
is  false  religion."  "Most  of  the  traveling  preachers 
in  connection  with  me,"  he  says  in  the  same  letter 
to  Dr.  Rutherforth,  "are  not  ignorant  men.  They 
know  all  which  they  profess  to  know.  The  languages 
they  do  not  profess  to  know,  yet  some  of  them  under- 
stand them  well.  Philosophy  they  do  not  profess 
to  know ;  yet  some  of  them  tolerably  understand  this 
also.  They  understand  both  one  and  the  other  better 
than   great   part   of   my   pupils   at    the   university 


248  IN  MEMORIAM 

did.  I  trust  there  is  not  one  of  them  who 
is  not  able  to  go  through  an  examination  in  sub- 
stantial, practical,  experimental  divinity  as  few  can- 
didates for  holy  orders  even  in  the  university  are 
able  to  do."  And  well  indeed  might  he  say  this;  for 
John  Wesley  himself  was  their  tutor  and  their 
exemplar.  He  was  no  hallelujah  centaur*  nor  would 
he  permit  them  to  be  such,  and  though  his  heart 
warmed  towards  men  of  blunt  and  fervent  speech,  he 
has  left  on  record  his  scorn  of  French  frippery  and 
English  platitudes.f 

From  the  Bible  he  learned  the  way  of  life,  and 
what  he  learned  he  taught.  Despising  no  knowledge 
and  no  art  that  would  help  him  teach  it  more  effect- 
ively, he  would  not  be  decoyed  into  any  kind  of 
preaching  that  did  not  promote  inward  and  outward 
righteousness.  "A  man  may  be/'  he  says  in  his 
sermon  on  The  Way  to  the  Kingdom,  "orthodox  on 
every  point;  he  may  not  only  espouse  right  opinions 
but  zealously  defend  them  against  all  opposers  and  yet 


*  ' '  I  am  no  more  like  your  picture  of  an  enthusiast  than 
like  a  centaur.' ' — Letter  to  Dr.  Church. 

t  Here  is  his  opinion  of  "the  Gospel  preachers  so-called.' ' 
They  "corrupt  their  hearers  and  vitiate  their  taste.  They 
feed  them  with  sweetmeats  till  the  genuine  wine  of  the  king- 
dom seems  quite  insipid  to  them.  They  give  them  cordial 
upon  cordial  which  make  them  all  life  and  spirit  for  the 
present  but  meantime  their  appetite  is  destroyed,  so  that 
they  can  neither  retain  nor  digest  the  pure  milk  of  the  word. 
.  .  .  Newcastle,  cold,  weary,  heartless,  diminished,  dead. 
Such  were  the  effects  of  this  Gospel  preaching ! ' '  Dealers 
in  the  soda-water  of  life  would  do  well  to  ponder  these  cut- 
ting words. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  249 

have  no  religion  at  all,  no  more  than  a  Jew,  Turk 
or  Pagan.  He  may  be  almost  though  not  altogether 
as  orthodox  as — the  devil;  and  may  all  the  while  be 
as  great  a  stranger  as  he  to  the  religion  of  the  heart. 
This  alone  is  religion:  The  Apostle  sums  it  all  up 
in  three  particulars:  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy 
in  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Thus  for  more  than  fifty  years  John  Wesley 
preached,  instant  in  season  and  out  of  season,  spread- 
ing with  God's  own  help  a  knowledge  of  His  eternal 
law  and  the  news  of  His  eternal  love  in  Jesus  Christ. 
There  were  times,  to  be  sure,  as  in  1775,  when  he 
felt  impelled  to  preach  on  current  events.  Mistaken 
though  he  was  in  his  views  of  the  American  revolu- 
tion, his  sermon  on  National  Sins  and  Miseries  is, 
nevertheless,  a  model  for  those  who  deal  with  public 
questions  in  the  pulpit.  Surely  the  chief  thing  for 
the  minister  of  Christ  who  treats  of  social  problems 
is  that  he  display  the  mind  of  Christ,  that  whatever 
opinions  he  express  be  uttered  without  malice  and  in 
tender  love,  and  that  all  his  skill  in  persuasion  be 
directed  as  Wesley's  was,  to  making  his  hearers  deeply 
sensible  how  far  their  undoubted  sins  are  the  cause  of 
other  men's  misery. 

No  wonder,  therefore,  that  his  power  as  a  preacher 
went  on  increasing  to  the  end.  The  final  entries  in 
his  journal  reveal  a  child-like  surprise  that  people 
crowd  to  hear  him  and  his  explanations  of  it  are  beau- 
tiful in  their  humility.  But  he  never  crossed  the 
dead-line  till  he  died.    Indeed  he  never  crossed  it  at 


250  IN  MEMORIAM 

all,  for,  being  dead,  he  preaches  still  and  shall 
forevermore. 

Among  the  last  records  of  his  public  appearances 
are  two  of  surpassing  and  enduring  beauty,  illustrat- 
ing as  nothing  else  could  the  old  man's  might  of 
character.  In  the  one  case  he  preaches  a  sermon  to 
nine  hundred  children  all  arrayed  in  plain  apparel 
and  lovely,  he  declares,  in  face  and  song  as  the  angels 
in  our  Father's  house.  What  a  picture  it  is:  the 
beauty  of  age  saluting  the  beauty  of  youth.  The 
long  hair  that  falls  upon  the  old  man's  shoulders  is 
still  soft  as  silk  but  no  longer  auburn-black.  Yet  his 
eye  is  bright  and  his  mind  alert.  Not  a  word  of  more 
than  two  syllables  escapes  his  lips.  He  used  long 
ones,  anyhow,  only  when  he  must.  But  with  the 
children  he  used  them  never.  The  authority  of  love 
has  not  gone  from  his  voice  though  it  is  weaker  than 
of  yore  and  slightly  tremulous.  But  the  old  lucidity 
of  statement  and  arrangement  holds  firmly  the  little 
ones'  attention;  they  watch  him  as  I  have  seen  chil- 
dren in  these  later  times  watch  the  play  of  an  electric 
fountain,  spellbound  by  the  mingled  beauty  of  his 
presence  and  his  speech. 

The  other  case  is  not  so  beautiful  perhaps,  but  far 
more  significant.  The  aged  saint  preached  at  Col- 
chester in  1790.  The  house  was  crowded,  galleries 
and  floor.  As  he  stood  in  the  high,  wide  pulpit  to 
address  the  awe-filled  multitude  two  of  his  younger 
brethren  supported  his  feeble  frame.  Henry  Crabb 
Robinson,  then  a  lad  of  fifteen,  beheld  the  scene  and 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  251 

described  it  vividly  long  afterwards.  "His  feeble 
voice  was  barely  audible,  but  his  reverend  counte- 
nance, especially  his  long  white  locks,  formed  a  pic- 
ture never  to  be  forgotten.  There  was  a  vast  crowd 
of  lovers  and  admirers.  It  was  for  the  most  part 
pantomime,  but  the  pantomime  went  to  the  heart; 
of  the  kind  I  never  saw  anything  comparable  to  it  in 
after  life."  He  never  saw  anything  comparable  to 
it !  There  has  never  been  anything  comparable  to  it 
since  the  days  of  St.  John  at  Ephesus.  But  a  letter 
written  by  Robinson  at  the  time  shows  plainly  where 
the  power  lay.  "Not  knowing  the  man,"  the  young 
lad  wrote,  "I  should  have  almost  ridiculed  his  figure. 
Far  from  it  now.  I  looked  upon  him  with  a  respect 
bordering  upon  enthusiasm."  Ay!  There's  the  glory 
of  it.  To  everyone  knowing  the  man  his  presence 
became  a  divine  radiance  and  every  gesture  a  bene- 
diction ;  the  long  white  locks  were  mightier  than  those 
of  Samson  in  his  youth ;  and  the  sentences  that  now 
and  then  emerged  from  the  steady  murmur  of  sweet 
sounds  seemed  like  an  overflow  from  the  invisible 
world. 

Verily,  verily,  it  was  the  accumulated  amen  of  the 
good  man's  deeds  that  made  his  words,  and  even  his 
whispers,  so  powerful  in  old  age  and  after  death. 
How  numerous  and  varied  and  beautiful  those  deeds 
had  been  it  was  no  part  of  my  plan  to  narrate. 
Properly  narrated,  they  should  stir  us  Methodists  to 
shame,  to  heart-searching  inquiry  and  ardent  prayer 
to  God  for  a  zeal  and  a  method  of  activity  befitting 


252  IN  MEMORIAM 

our  superior  knowledge  and  to  efforts  proportioned 
to  our  means  and  our  opportunities.  "I  am  tired 
of  opinions/'  John  Wesley  used  to  say ;  "I  want  life." 
Brethren,  I  am  tired  of  statistics;  I  want  purity  of 
soul  and  nobility  of  conduct,  a  glorious  rivalry  of 
self-sacrifice,  an  outburst  of  ethical  and  spiritual 
energy,  the  victory  of  which  shall  overcome  the  world. 
The  Methodism  of  John  Wesley  was  first  an  organ- 
ized conscience  and  then  an  organized  rapture.  It 
bound  together  inseparably  the  eternal  law  of  God 
with  His  eternal  life  in  Jesus  Christ.  Its  doctrine 
of  perfection  was  the  two  great  commandments.  Its 
ecstasies  were  only  incidents  of  the  service  that  is 
sonship  and  perfect  liberty.  In  vain  shall  we  attempt 
to  restore  the  rapture  without  the  conscience  and  the 
conduct  that  it  glorified;  the  preaching  and  the 
revival  needed  for  this  and  every  age  is  the  preaching 
and  the  revival  of  scriptural  Christianity. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN* 

JUST  forty-six  years  ago  yesterday,  Abraham 
Lincoln  parted  from  his  friends  and  neighbors,  "not 
knowing,"  he  said,  "when  or  whether  ever  I  may 
return  and  with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that 
which  rested  upon  Washington."  And  then  he 
added :  "Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being 
who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With  that 
assistance,  I  cannot  fail."  He  never  returned;  only 
the  shattered  tenement  of  him  was  given  back  to 
the  people  of  Springfield.  The  man  himself,  his 
mind,  his  magnanimous  soul,  his  patient,  resolute, 
indomitable  will,  the  indestructible  Abraham  Lincoln, 
had  entered  into  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  and 
into  the  memory  of  the  civilized  world,  there  to 
abide,  an  energy  for  political  righteousness,  so  long 
as  freedom  and  fraternity  remain  emblazoned  upon 
the  banners  of  human  progress. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  always  nobler  than  his  sur- 
roundings and  wiser  than  his  companions;  but  there 
has  been  in  many  places,  and  not  seldom  here  in  this 
great  state  to  which  his  name  and  that  of  Grant  have 
given  imperishable  luster,  a  somewhat  grudging  rec- 
ognition of  his  nobility  and  wisdom.    His  image  has 


*  An  address  delivered  on  Lincoln  Day,  1907,  in  Memorial 
Hall,  Chicago. 

255 


256  IN  MEMOKIAM 

been  obscured  by  the  out-breathings  of  men  who 
thought  that  he  was  altogether  such  an  one  as  them- 
selves and  who  fastened  upon  the  defects  of  his  mas- 
sive nature  as  though  they  were  the  substance  of  his 
being ;  men  who  were  fain  to  magnify  their  own  petti- 
ness by  creeping  into  some  crevice  of  his  character. 

You  will  permit  me,  therefore,  to  begin  with  a 
paragraph  from  one  of  his  early  speeches,  a  para- 
graph that  lives  in  my  mind  as  the  cathedral  utter- 
ance of  Abraham  Lincoln,  because  I  can  never  recall 
it  without  the  vision  of  some  mighty  structure  soar- 
ing upwards  like  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  or  the  spires 
of  Cologne's  beautiful  temple  into  that  ampler  ether 
where  a  sublime  human  achievement  is  made  glorious 
by  the  greeting  of  the  radiant  skies. 

Speaking  of  the  slave  power,  he  exclaimed :  "Broken 
by  it,  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I  never  will.  The 
probability  that  we  may  fail  in  the  struggle  ought  not 
to  deter  us  from  the  support  of  a  cause  which  we 
deem  to  be  just.  It  shall  not  deter  me.  If  I  ever 
feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and  expand  to  those 
dimensions,  not  wholly  unworthy  its  Almighty  Archi- 
tect, it  is  when  I  contemplate  the  cause  of  my  coun- 
try deserted  by  all  the  world  besides,  and  I,  standing 
up  boldly  and  alone  and  hurling  defiance  at  her  vic- 
torious oppressors.  Here  without  contemplating  con- 
sequence, before  high  Heaven,  and  in  the  face  of 
the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  just  cause, 
as  I  deem  it,  of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and 
my  love." 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  257 

There  is  the  key  to  the  peculiar  character  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  His  soul  was  capable  of  infinite  expan- 
sion; and  under  the  inspiration  of  great  opportunity 
and  tremendous  responsibility  his  soul  did  expand  to 
dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy  of  its  Almighty 
Architect;  but  it  was  a  soul  whose  final  majesty, 
whose  ultimate  harmonious  proportions  were  never 
quite  comprehended  by  men  who  boasted  that  they, 
too,  were  hewn  from  the  same  rough  quarry  and  who 
flattered  themselves  that  they,  too,  might  have 
expanded  to  the  same  grandeur. 

Yet  even  these  could  not  hide  the  fact  that  Lincoln 
had  been  always  a  being  apart;  friendly,  sociable, 
kindly,  helpful;  but  singularly,  although  not  offen- 
sively, unlike  his  neighbors.  The  strength  of  a  giant 
was  the  servant  of  "a  heart  as  big  as  his  arms  were 
long."  Like  Garibaldi,  the  hero  of  United  Italy,  he 
could  not  bear  the  sight  or  sound  of  needless  suf- 
fering. Bigger  and  stronger  than  any  of  his  com- 
panions, he  was  the  gentlest  of  them  all.  But  the 
quality  of  his  mind  was  wholly  different  from  theirs ; 
indeed  it  was  of  a  quality  exceedingly  rare  in  the 
whole  world.  Lincoln  had  marvelous  mental  eyesight. 
He  looked  not  so  much  at  things  as  into  them.  His 
vision  was  not  only  accurate  but  penetrating.  It  was 
a  vision  unblurred  by  his  own  hasty  fancies  or  his 
own  wishes ;  and  a  vision  undimmed  by  prevalent  mis- 
statements or  current  misconceptions;  a  vision  never 
long  perturbed  by  the  sophistries  of  men  skilled  to 
make  "the  worse  appear  the  better  reason." 


258  IN  MEMORIAM 

Speaking  once  of  the  declaration  of  Galileo  that 
a  ball  dropped  and  a  ball  shot  from  the  mouth  of  the 
cannon  would  strike  the  ground  at  the  same  instant, 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  long  before  he  knew  the  rea- 
sons for  it,  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  must  be  so.  Like 
Galileo,  he  saw  the  thing  before  and  not  merely  after 
it  was  proved.  He  saw  that  the  downward  pull  on 
both  balls  must  be  the  same,  and  that  the  outward 
drive  of  the  one  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the 
time  of  its  fall.  We  may  indeed  wonder  what  might 
have  been  his  career,  if,  like  Michael  Faraday,  he  had 
first  read  books  of  science  instead  of  the  Revised 
Statutes  of  Illinois  or  the  Commentaries  of  Black- 
stone  that  he  found  in  a  pile  of  rubbish.  Fate 
decreed,  however,  that  this  rare  quality  of  penetra- 
tive wisdom  should  be  applied  to  law  and  to  state- 
craft— especially  to  the  problems  then  challenging  the 
thought  of  the  American  people.  This  vision,  more- 
over, was  not  only  penetrative;  it  was  prophetic. 
He  could  foresee  consequences  as  distinctly  as  he 
could  discern  realities.  It  was  not  pure  guessing, 
when  he  exclaimed:  "This  nation  cannot  continue 
half-free  and  half-slave."  It  was  a  prediction  derived 
from  steady  and  consecutive  vision.  For,  genuine 
logic,  like  the  logic  of  Euclid  that  fascinated  him, 
is  after  all  a  continuous  seeing.  Given  the  elements 
of  a  situation,  the  mind  watches  them  as  conse- 
quence follows  consequence  in  sure  and  certain  revela- 
tion. Never  to  befool  oneself  about  an  actual  situa- 
tion and  never  to  befool  oneself  in  reasoning  upon  it 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  259 

— these  are  the  bases  of  science,  physical  and  political. 
And  science  is  the  modern  almanac,  the  handbook 
of  prediction.  When  men  like  Douglas  were  attempt- 
ing to  manipulate  and  thwart  the  laws  of  God  which 
determine  national  destiny,  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
humbly  studying  them  in  the  spirit  of  Galileo  and  of 
Francis  Bacon. 

Daniel  Webster  once  declared  that  it  is  wholly 
unnecessary  to  re-enact  the  laws  of  God.  The 
saying,  strictly  construed,  is  true  enough,  but  the 
implications  of  it,  as  Lincoln  saw,  are  utterly 
false.  We  need  not,  indeed,  re-enact  the  laws  of 
God,  but  our  statutes,  if  they  shall  work  benefit  and 
not  disaster,  must  recognize  and  conform  to  them. 
The  laws  of  God  left  to  themselves  leave  us  in  impo- 
tence, and  exposed  to  hunger,  disease  and  disaster. 
All  our  mastery  of  the  physical  world  depends  upon 
our  actively  using,  not  upon  our  passively  submitting 
to  the  laws  of  the  material  universe.  In  this  sense 
every  flying  locomotive  is  a  re-enactment  of  the  laws 
of  God;  so  is  every  telescope  that  opens  to  mortal 
vision  the  splendors  of  immensity,  and  every  micro- 
scope with  which  we  track  to  their  hiding  places  the 
mysteries  of  life  and  death.  So  is  every  temple  that 
we  rear,  every  bridge  that  we  build,  every  steamship 
that  we  construct,  every  mill  that  we  erect  and  every 
machine  into  which  we  conduct  the  energy  of  steam 
or  electricity.  The  whole  progress  of  civilized  man 
may  be  measured  by  the  extent  to  which  he  has 
learned  in  his  activities  to  obey  and  to  employ  the 


260  IN  MEMORIAM 

laws  of  God.  So,  too,  in  the  political  world,  the 
great  structures  that  we  call  commonwealths  must, 
in  this  sense,  be  re-enactments  of  eternal  principles. 
If  they  are  to  be  beneficent  and  not  malignant,  those 
who  create  and  control  them  must  learn  the  laws  by 
which  alone  benign  results  can  be  obtained.  Con- 
stitutions can  endure  and  statutes  increase  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people  only  as  they  realize  and  do  not 
contravene  the  principles  of  righteousness  and  prog- 
ress. Penetrating  to  this  simple  but  tremendous 
truth,  Mr.  Lincoln  obtained  his  vision  of  the  future; 
his  prophetic  gaze  swept  the  political  horizon  and 
discerned  the  inevitable. 

And  this  foresight  was  both  profound  and  far- 
reaching.  In  learned  information  his  horizon  might 
be  termed  a  narrow  one ;  but  in  his  grasp  of  principles 
and  of  their  ultimate  and  universal  consequences  he 
was  broader  and  deeper  than  any  statesman  of  his 
age.  The  only  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  at  the  flag- 
raising  in  Philadelphia  on  Washington's  birthday  in 
1861.  I  could  not  hear  his  voice,  so  great  was  the 
intervening  crowd,  but  the  words  that  I  could  not 
hear  I  have  read  and  pondered  often  since. 

"I  never  have  had  a  feeling,"  said  the  predestined 
martyr  for  whom  assassins  even  then  were  lying  in 
wait,  "that  did  not  spring  from  the  sentiments 
embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  the 
sentiments  which  gave  liberty  not  alone  to  the  people 
of  this  country,  but  hope  to  all  the  world  for  all 
future  time.     It  was  these  that  gave  promise  that 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  261 

in  due  season  the  weights  should  be  lifted  from  the 
shoulders  of  all  men  and  that  all  should  have  an 
equal  chance.  And  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved 
without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say, 
I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  sur- 
render it."  If  this  be  narrowness  of  vision,  then 
may  God  contract  the  eyes  of  American  statesmen 
to  a  similar  horizon. 

Such  was  the  mind  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  a  mind 
that  gravitated  gladly  to  the  truth  of  things ;  a  mind 
that  loved  light  and  hated  darkness;  a  mind  that 
found  rest  only  in  eternal  principles,  and  inspiration 
in  prophetic  visions  and  exalted  political  ideals. 

Possibly  under  different  surroundings  he  might 
have  become  a  renowned  scientist;  more  probably 
through  his  radiant  and  steady  intellect  united  to  his 
great  heart  would  have  made  him  even  under  other 
conditions  a  supreme  statesman.  For  the  scientist 
seeks  chiefly  for  causes  and  is  satisfied  to  find  and 
to  show  them;  if  he  concerns  himself  for  beneficent 
results,  as  he  often  does,  these  are  not  his  principal 
quest.  He  searches  for  the  seeds  of  things  and 
delights  to  see  them  grow.  The  statesman,  on  the 
other  hand,  seeks  first,  last,  and  always  the  welfare 
of  the  people.  And  Mr.  Lincoln  loved  the  people, 
craving  their  happiness  and  hating  oppression  even 
when  it  assumed  the  form  of  law.  Monarchs  and 
oligarchs  strive  mainly  to  perpetuate  their  privileges 
and  to  increase  their  power;  even  in  republics  there 
be   those   who   usurp   free   institutions   in   order   to 


262  IN  MEMORIAM 

enlarge  their  wealth  and  to  entrench  their  tyranny. 
Mr.  Lincoln  perceived  too  clearly  and  felt  too  keenly 
the  burdens  of  the  common  man  ever  to  become  the 
active  or  the  passive  instrument  of  any  power  that 
would  abridge  his  liberties  or  dimmish  the  oppor- 
tunities of  his  children.  The  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, so  often  mentioned  in  his  speeches,  he  rec- 
ognized as  the  embodiment  of  the  principles  that 
determine  all  political  progress.  Human  govern- 
ments are  sanctioned  and  favored  by  Almighty  God, 
so  long,  and  so  long  only,  as  they  promote  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people  and  further  the  progress  of  man- 
kind. Directly  they  become  instruments  of  oppres- 
sion, or  strongholds  of  tyranny,  they  provoke  the 
judgments  which  are  righteous  altogether,  when  "the 
wealth  piled  up  by  unrequited  toil"  shall  be  sunk  in 
the  divine  wrath  "and  every  drop  of  blood  drawn 
with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with 
the  sword." 

And  he  recognized  himself,  humbly  and  gladly  as  a 
product  of  the  principles  that  he  defended.  Free- 
dom had  made  it  possible  for  his  own  soul  to  expand 
to  dimensions  not  unworthy  of  its  Almighty  Archi- 
tect. One  need  only  to  read  the  story  of  modern 
Italy,  of  her  exiles  and  her  patriots  dying  in  dungeons 
and  upon  the  scaffold,  to  see  how  utterly  impossible 
would  have  been  such  a  career  under  the  Italian  skies. 
It  is  enough  to  make  one  weep  tears  of  blood  to  know 
the  tremendous  price  that  the  descendants  of  Dante 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE 

and  of  Galileo  paid  for  unity  and  liberty.  And  her 
Garibaldi  grew  strong  in  the  shelter  of  our  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  But  a  poor  lad  like  Abraham 
Lincoln,  even  though  capable  of  penetrative,  pro- 
phetic and  profound  vision — a  poor  lad,  awkward  in 
body,  homely  in  features  and  unaggressive  in  dispo- 
sition, with  no  capital  but  his  strong  arms,  his  big 
heart  and  his  luminous  brain,  could  expand  to  pro- 
portions worthy  of  his  divine  Creator  only  in  the 
bracing  air  of  freedom  and  social  equality.  Nay,  he 
could  not  have  reached  these  splendid  dimensions 
except  in  a  free  state  of  the  American  Union — not 
even  in  the  Kentucky  of  Henry  Clay,  or  in  the  Vir- 
ginia that  had  ceased  to  think  the  thoughts  of  Thomas 
Jefferson. 

Combined  with  these  rare  qualities  of  mind,  Mr. 
Lincoln  possessed  a  gift  of  exact  expression  that  bor- 
dered on  the  marvelous.  His  fidelity  of  speech 
matched  his  fidelity  of  vision.  He  could  say  what  he 
saw  and  make  others  see  what  he  said.  "Well !  Speed ! 
I'm  moved!"  he  exclaimed  with  laconic  humor  after 
carrying  his  saddle-bags  upstairs  to  his  friend's  room. 
"Judge  Douglas  has  the  high  distinction  of  never  hav- 
ing said  either  that  slavery  is  right,  or  that  slavery 
is  wrong.  Almost  everybody  else  says  one  or  the 
other,  but  the  Judge  never  does."  Such  was  the  sen- 
tence with  which  he  transfixed  his  dodging  antagonist 
before  the  astonished  people  of  Illinois. 

"If  one  man  enslaves  another,  no  third  man  has 


264  IN  MEMORIAM 

the  right  to  object!"  Into  those  thirteen  words  he 
distilled  the  malignant  meaning  of  the  Dred  Scott 
decision. 

"The  central  idea  of  secession  is  the  essence  of 
anarchy,"  such  is  the  terse  statement  of  the  first 
inaugural,  followed  by  a  demonstration  as  lucid  as 
the  proposition. 

Galileo  used  to  say  that  God  had  written  the  laws 
of  nature  in  geometrical  characters;  Mr.  Lincoln 
believed  that  political  principles  could  be  stated  with 
geometrical  clearness,  and  he  confronted  his  adver- 
saries whenever  great  issues  were  involved,  not  by 
denunciation,  but  by  illumination.  If  he  could  not 
show  them  he  could  at  least  show  other  people  just 
where  they  stood  and  just  what  they  meant. 

It  is  to  the  enduring  honor  of  the  people  of  Illinois 
that  they  were  large  enough  to  recognize  the  expand- 
ing dimensions  of  this  strong  soul;  that  when  this 
clear-eyed  defender  of  liberty  and  union  appeared 
among  them  their  sight  was  sharp  enough  to  see  above 
him  the  beckoning  hand  of  destiny.  How  long  is  the 
tradition  to  endure  that  handsome  presence  and  son- 
orous voice,  swollen  periods,  glittering  platitudes, 
reckless  assertions,  delusive  epigrams,  and  the  sneers 
of  the  sophist  suffice  for  popular  leadership?  They 
suffice  only  when  the  people  are  unworthy  of  great 
statesmen,  or  when  inferior  and  selfish  leaders  are 
unopposed  by  clear  thinking,  plain  speaking  and 
intrepid  action.  They  suffice  never  when  a  soul 
expanded    by    the    inspiration    of    great    principles 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  265 

grapples  with  a  spirit  so  swollen  and  heated  with 
ambition,  that  it  has  grown  indifferent  to  the  dignity 
of  its  Almighty  Architect.  Douglas  was  skilled  in 
the  arts  of  plausible  address,  adroit,  audacious,  eva- 
sive, self-assertive,  denunciatory ;  full  of  the  forms  of 
logic,  yet  reckless  of  the  truth.  How  shriveled  and 
shrunken  he  appeared  when  illuminated  by  the  ever- 
expanding  mind  of  his  conqueror!  Stripped  of  his 
pride,  of  his  self-delusions,  of  the  garments  of  party 
leadership  for  which  he  had  surrendered  the  cardinal 
principles  of  democracy,  how  small  the  human  rem- 
nant looked !  His  antagonist's  soul  had  expanded  to 
a  temple  of  light;  his  own  brain  had  dwindled  to  a 
gaudy  tabernacle  of  ambitious  craving  and  bewildering 
inconsistencies.  "He  bargained  with  us  and  then 
under  the  stress  of  a  local  election  his  knees  gave 
way ;  his  whole  person  trembled."  Such  was  the  rail- 
ing accusation  in  1860  of  his  accuser  and  fellow- 
bargainer,  Judah  P.  Benjamin.  How  the  accusation 
degrades  them  both,  even  after  more  than  forty  years. 
"He  bargained  with  us  and  then  betrayed  us."  Some 
day  parties  and  communities  will  learn  that  men  who 
betray  their  principles  in  a  bargain  will  betray  their 
purchasers  in  an  extremity,  wrecking  themselves  along 
with  those  that  bought  them. 

Not  Lincoln's  mind  alone  expanded  to  dimensions 
worthy  of  its  Almighty  Architect,  but  his  whole  being 
took  on  majesty  as  he  assumed  responsibilities  and  set 
about  a  task  which  to  him  seemed  even  greater  than 
that  of  Washington.    His  entire  administration  was  a 


266  IN  MEMORIAM 

protracted  magnanimity.  He  was  great  in  his  for- 
bearance as  he  was  great  in  his  performance.  Often 
tempted  to  use  his  strength  against  men  who,  like 
Greeley,  assumed  an  impatient  and  dictatorial  tone; 
his  endurance  strained  to  the  breaking  point  by 
schemers  and  place-seekers  and  the  cormorants  that 
batten  and  fatten  in  war  times  upon  the  miseries  of 
the  people;  peering  anxiously  into  the  skies  above 
him  for  some  token  of  hope  dropped  from  the  hand 
of  God;  the  Lincoln  that  once  carried  the  village 
postoffice  in  his  hat  bore  the  destinies  of  millions 
upon  his  mighty  heart  and  expanded  to  the  stature 
of  the  suffering  savior  of  the  nation.  He  mastered 
his  cabinet  with  serene  self-control;  he  sustained 
with  matchless  generosity  the  successive  commanders 
of  the  several  armies,  slow  to  change  but  swift  to 
praise;  with  patient  vigilance  he  studied  the  move- 
ments of  the  public  mind,  waiting  for  it  to  become  the 
footstool  of  his  great  purpose  of  emancipation,  while 
with  the  diplomatic  skill  of  an  imperturbable  wisdom, 
he  averted  the  perils  of  a  foreign  war. 

But  let  me  recall  two  dates  that  illuminate  each 
other  strangely  and  disclose  the  rare  quality  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  magnanimity.  On  the  5th  of  August,  1864, 
when  his  re-election  seemed  doubtful  and  almost  hope- 
less to  himself,  there  appeared  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  a  three-coluntn  manifesto  signed  by  Ben- 
jamin F.  Wade  and  H.  Winter  Davis,  two  notable 
leaders  of  the  Republican  Party.  "They  had  read," 
so  they  began,  "without  surprise  but  not  without  in- 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  267 

dignation  the  proclamation  of  July  8th."  "A  more 
studied  outrage  on  the  legislative  authority  of  the  peo- 
ple/' they  continued,  "has  never  been  perpetrated." 
They  sneeringly  inquired  "upon  what  the  President's 
hopes  of  abolishing  slavery  through  the  nation  rest."  If 
he  wishes  the  support  of  Congress  he  must  confine 
himself  to  his  executive  duties,  and  they  conclude 
with  ill-concealed  malignity,  "the  supporters  of  the 
government  should  consider  the  remedy  for  these 
usurpations,  and  having  found  it,  fearlessly  execute 
it."  White  as  my  hair  has  grown,  there  is  blood 
enough  in  my  heart  to  heat  it  with  anger  even  now 
as  I  recall  the  gloomy  August  day  of  1864  on  which 
I  first  read  these  cruel  words.  They  ought,  as  we 
knew  long  since,  never  to  have  been  written.  They 
were  wrong,  utterly  wrong,  and  it  was  unspeakably 
mean  to  publish  them  when  the  destiny  of  the  coun- 
try was  trembling  in  the  balance. 

Contrast  now  these  self-righteous  statesmen  (for 
statesmen  they  were  of  no  small  stature)  with  the 
man  that  they  assailed.  They  were  imperiling  the 
nation  to  satisfy  their  wounded  pride.  Mr.  Lincoln's 
one  thought  was  to  save,  to  save,  to  save  the  Union. 

On  the  23rd  of  August  he  gave  to  the  members  of 
his  cabinet,  sealed,  to  be  opened  only  after  the  elec- 
tion, the  following  memorandum: 

"This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past,  it  seems 
exceedingly  probable  that  this  administration  will 
not  be  re-elected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  so 
co-operate  with  the   President-elect  as  to  save   the 


£68  Itt  MEMORIAM 

Union  between  the  election  and  the  inauguration;  as 
he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such  ground  that 
he  cannot  possibly  save  it  afterwards." 

0 !  gloriously  expanded  soul !  0 !  temple  of  the 
Living  God  not  unworthy  of  its  Almighty  Architect. 
Happy  the  people  whose  destinies  in  the  hour  of 
impending  disaster  are  entrusted  to  a  heart  so  big, 
a  mind  so  clear,  a  will  so  patient  and  so  adamantine ! 
No  wonder,  therefore,  that  his  final  utterances  fall 
upon  us  with  such  benignity;  that  they  seem  more 
like  the  solemn  music  of  infinite  wisdom,  and  of 
infinite  tenderness,  than  like  the  speech  of  mortal 
man.  Did  some  still  small  voice  within  him  tell 
him  that  he,  too,  must  be  a  victim  of  that  partisan 
malignity  which  he  had  never  ( shared  and  never 
fostered,  that  it  would  be  a  part  of  the  punishment 
allotted  to  his  people  that  he  should  be  taken  from 
them,  even  before  the  mighty  work  was  done  and 
when  as  yet  the  need  of  him  was  very  great  ?  Brother 
Americans,  we  can  repair  that  great  loss  only  by  enter- 
ing into  his  spirit;  not  by  statues  of  him  of  marble 
or  bronze;  not,  God  help  us,  by  reshaping  the  image 
of  him  until  it  dwindles  into  something  like  ourselves, 
but  by  reshaping  ourselves,  our  own  souls,  until  they 
resemble  his  in  its  expansive  power  and  ultimate 
nobility. 

If  he  could  return  from  that  bourne  from  which, 
alas !  the  sages  come  not  back  to  bring  us  wisdom,  and 
frequent  for  a  while  the  Union  that  he  saved,  how 
we  should  crowd  around  him !    What  honors  and  what 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  269 

eulogies  would  we  heap  upon  his  transfigured  form ! 
But  after  we  had  told  him  proudly  of  our  territorial 
expansion,  of  our  enormous  wealth,  of  our  splendid 
cities  with  their  monumental  buildings  soaring 
towards  the  skies,  of  our  flag,  the  symbol  everywhere 
of  a  new  world  power,  of  our  great  industries  and  our 
colossal  fortunes,  I  think  I  hear  him  ask :  "But  what 
of  your  men  ?"  Do  their  "souls  expand  to  dimensions 
not  unworthy  of  their  Almighty  Architect?"  Are 
they  inspired  by  principles  that  enlarge  them  to  divine 
proportions?  What  about  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence? Are  its  principles  denied  and  evaded  as 
they  used  to  be,  or  are  they  cherished  and  lived  up 
to  and  exalted?  Are  its  ideas  of  free  government 
applied  or  are  they  being  supplanted  by  those  of  class 
and  caste  and  special  privilege  ?  Are  you  deceived  by 
f  orms  and  sonorous  phrases  ?  By  men  who  talk  liberty 
and  mean  slavery?  By  men  who  adore  the  Constitu- 
tion with  their  lips  while  their  hearts  are  far  from  it  ? 
Do  you  fancy,  I  hear  him  ask,  that  because  you  call 
no  man  duke  or  king,  you  are,  therefore,  free  and 
independent  owners  of  yourselves?  That  because 
you  offer  no  man  openly  a  crown,  you  are  sovereign 
citizens  and  self-governing  communities?  Have  you 
not  yet  learned  the  difference  between  the  forms  and 
the  power  of  self-government?  What  about  your 
worship  of  the  Constitution  ?  There  were  men  in  my 
time  who  adored  it  in  their  speech  and  who  were  yet 
doing  their  utmost  to  pervert  it  and  to  destroy  its 
value.    Have  the  enemies  of  social  justice  revived  the 


270  IN  MEMORIAM 

old  diabolical  trick  of  interpreting  it  to  defend  oppres- 
sion, or  have  the  people  mastered  the  divine  art  of 
reading  it  in  the  light  of  its  sublime  intention  "to 
form  a  more  perfect  union  and  to  promote  the  gen- 
eral welfare?"  And  what  about  your  legislatures, 
state  and  national?  Have  they  improved  with  your 
material  progress?  Are  statutes  carefully  prepared 
and  wisely  considered?  Do  they  enact  the  laws  of 
God  or  the  will  of  some  powerful  interest?  Do  they 
conform  to  immutable  principles  of  political  wisdom, 
or  are  hirelings  and  demagogues,  misguided  incom- 
petents and  ambitious  leaders,  all  wearing  the  livery 
of  freedom,  still  telling  you  that  you  can  evade  and 
thwart  and  even  nullify  with  impunity  the  principles 
of  righteousness  and  equity?  Have  your  political 
leaders  eyes,  and  can  they  see  ?  Have  they  brains  and 
can  they  reason?  Or  do  they  darken  counsel  with  a 
multitude  of  words?  Or  shelter  themselves  in  cow- 
ardly silence?  Have  they  principles  for  which  they 
are  ready  to  be  assassinated,  or  have  they  principles 
only  for  platforms  or  parade  or  purchase  ? 

Fixing  upon  us  those  piercing  and  melancholy  eyes, 
he  would  warn  us  to  learn  wisdom  in  the  time  of 
our  power  and  our  wealth  and  our  opportunity,  lest 
we,  too,  provoke  the  righteous  judgment  of  God  upon 
ourselves  and  our  posterity.  He  would  remind  us 
with  pathetic  solemnity  that  all  the  miseries  of  those 
terrible  years  in  which  he  suffered  for  us  came  from 
judicial  blindness,  from  the  sacrifice  of  conscience, 
and  truth,  and  freedom  of  speech,  to  avarice  and 


CHAELES  J.  LITTLE  271 

ambition  and  the  lust  of  power";  and  lifting  his  hands 
to  the  "Almighty  Architect"  of  his  own  expanded 
and  transfigured  soul,  he  would  call  upon  us  all  "to 
here  highly  resolve  that  the  dead  shall  not  have  died 
in  vain;  that  this  nation  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the 
earth/' 


JOHN  MILTON 


JOHN  MILTON* 

"The  work  some  praise, 
And  some  the  architect." 

THESE  are  Milton's  words  concerning  Mulciber, 

"Whose  hand  was  known  in  Heaven 
By  many  a  towered  structure  high, 
Where  sceptred  angels  hold  their  residence." 

Suffer  me  to  praise  the  architect  and  only  inci- 
dentally the  work. 

The  first  edition  of  Milton's  minor  poems  appeared 
in  1645.  The  frontispiece  was  an  engraved  portrait 
of  a  morose  and  rather  stupid-faced  Englishman, 
whose  long  hair,  parted  in  the  middle,  fell  down  on 
both  sides  to  the  high  collar  around  the  neck. 
Beneath  the  picture  one  could  read  in  Latin,  "John 
Milton,  Englishman,  in  his  twenty-first  year";  and 
in  Greek,  four  lines  furnished  to  the  engraver  in  jest 
by  Milton  himself.  Boughly  translated,  the  poet's 
mischief  reads: 

"That  some  uncunning  hand  this  face  had  carved 
Quickly  you'd  say,  the  living  features  seen, 



*A  paper  read  before  The  Chicago  Literary  Club,  Dec. 
7,  1908. 

275 


276  IN  MEMORIAM 

But  finding  here  no  trait  of  me,  my  friends 
Laugh  at  the  bungling  graver's  sorry  botch." 

This  was  the  beginning  only  of  a  fate  that  has  pur- 
sued Milton  down  to  our  day.  Marshall,  the 
engraver,  though,  sinned  without  malice,  while 
Samuel  Johnson,  most  illustrious  of  Milton's  subse- 
quent detractors,  poured  out  upon  the  citizen  a  brew 
of  falsehood  and  spleen  which  no  praise  of  the  poet 
could  expiate.  For  the  poet  had  committed  the 
greatest  of  crimes:  he  had  taken  sides  in  an  inter- 
necine political  struggle,  and  taken,  too,  what  seemed 
to  Johnson  and  Hume  and  all  the  Tories  of  England 
and  of  Europe,  the  side  of  traitors  and  anarchists 
who  had  beheaded  statesmen  and  bishops,  and  finally 
a  king,  and  in  their  revolutionary  frenzy  enfeebled 
for  all  time  the  sacredness  of  hereditary  privilege 
and  the  efficacy  of  consecrating  oil. 

To  understand  Milton  we  must  begin  here.  He  was 
known  to  most  of  his  contemporaries,  not  as  a  poet, 
but  as  a  writer  of  political  pamphlets  at  a  time  when, 
as  the  publisher  of  these  minor  poems  declared,  "the 
slightest  pamphlet  was  more  vendible  than  the  works 
of  learnedest  men."  Before  this  collection  of  poems 
was  published,  Milton's  tractates  upon  reformation 
and  episcopacy,  the  tractate  upon  divorce,  and  the 
Areopagitica,  the  speech  for  the  liberty  of  unlicensed 
printing,  had  made  their  author  notorious,  rather 
than  famous;  he  had  provoked  the  wrath  of  Episco- 
palian   and    Presbyterian,    of    royalists    and    com- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  277 

promisers,  in  the  days  when  ears  were  cropped  and 
the  headsman's  axe  was  not  unfrequently  the  final 
argument. 

Not  a  few  of  his  biographers  declare  with  lofty 
self-complacency  that  Milton's  pamphlets  had  scant 
influence  upon  the  direction  of  events.  This  is  true 
of  all  really  great  political  writing;  as  true  of 
Edmund  Burke,  of  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt,  of  Fran- 
cis Lieber,  as  it  is  of  John  Milton.  For  the  really  great 
political  writer  sees  things  from  that  ampler  ether 
into  which  the  lesser  spirits  never  soar.  His  influ- 
ence, moreover,  asserts  itself  rather  in  the  assent  of 
the  thinking  few  and  in  the  resistance  that  he  pro- 
vokes from  the  interests  he  assails,  than  in  the  num- 
ber of  the  admirers  and  adherents  that  he  attracts. 
Milton  was  an  independent  of  no  narrow  spirit,  a 
Christian  who  belonged  to  no  sect,  a  patriot  who 
belonged  to  no  party,  a  Puritan  whose  conscience 
reaffirmed  the  laws  of  God,  often  by  defying  the 
enactments  and  traditions  of  men.  Independence 
like  this  can  never  become  popular;  and  if  supported 
by  unflinching  courage  and  resplendent  genius,  it 
is  sure  to  be  decried,  denounced,  misrepresented,  and 
maligned.  That  Milton  never  feared  the  face  of  man, 
these  pamphlets  amply  prove.  That  his  genius  tran- 
scended that  of  his  contemporaries,  Hobbes,  Selden, 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  Jeremy  Taylor,  to  mention  the 
immortals  only,  leaps  to  the  mind  of  every  intelligent 
reader  of  the  Areopagitica.  That  he  possessed  the 
prophetic  quality  which  is  the  very  eye  of  inspiration, 


278  IN  MEMORIAM 

three  succeeding  centuries  have  attested,  for  the  prin- 
ciples that  Milton  championed  and  defended,  even  the 
principle  that  penetrates  and  redeems  his  treatises 
upon  divorce,  have  become  the  commonplaces  of  our 
modern  political  and  social  creeds.  Who  believes 
today  either  in  the  divine  right  of  kings,  as  held  by 
Laud  the  bishop,  or  in  the  hereditary  inalienability  of 
a  kingly  crown,  as  held  afterward  by  Blackstone  ihe 
lawyer?  Who  now  refuses  sanction  to  Milton's  noble 
contention  that  a  true  marriage  must  be  something 
finer  and  diviner  than  a  union  of  two  bodies,  that  it 
must  be  a  harmony  of  souls  attuned  to  a  concord  of 
thought  and  purpose,  a  companionship  of  sorrow  miti- 
gated by  love  and  of  delights  intensified  by  mutual 
participation  ? 

Who  does  not  share  with  Milton  the  desire  and 
hope  for  that  nobler  ministry  of  truth  from  which 
the  hirelings  shall  be  driven  by  the  lash  of  public 
scorn?  and  who,  whatever  be  his  belief  or  disbe- 
lief, does  not  thrill  at  Milton's  picture  of  the  com- 
ing of  "  the  King  who  shall  put  an  end  to  all  earthly 
tyrannies,  proclaiming  his  universal  and  mild  mon- 
archy through  heaven  and  earth;  where  they  that 
by  their  labours,  counsels,  and  prayers  have  been  in 
earnest  for  the  common  good  of  religion  and  their 
country  shall  in  superabundance  of  beatific  vision 
progressing  the  dateless  and  irrevoluble  circle  of  eter- 
nity, clasp  inseparable  hands  with  joy  and  bliss,  in 
over-measure  forever?" 

Who  would  reinstate  the  censor  now?    But  if  it 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  279 

were  attempted,  what  better  arguments  to  defeat 
it  than  those  of  Milton?  "As  good  almost  kill  a 
man  as  kill  a  good  book;  who  kills  a  man  kills  a 
reasonable  creature,  God's  image;  but  he  who  de- 
stroys a  good  book  kills  reason  itself,  kills  the  image 
of  God,  as  it  were,  in  the  eye.  Many  a  man  lives  a 
burden  to  the  earth ;  but  a  good  book  is  the  precious 
life-blood  of  a  master  spirit,  embalmed  and 
treasured  up  on  purpose .  to  a  life  beyond  life." 
"  Though  all  the  winds  of  doctrine  were  let  loose  to 
prey  upon  the  earth,  so  truth  be  in  the  field,  we  do 
injuriously  by  licensing  and  prohibiting  to  misdoubt 
her  strength.  Let  her  and  falsehood  grapple;  who 
ever  knew  truth  put  to  the  worse  on  a  free  and 
open  encounter?  Who  knows  not  that  truth  is 
strong  next  to  the  Almighty;  she  needs  no  policies, 
nor  stratagems  nor  licensings,  to  make  her  victorious ; 
thope  are  the  shifts  and  defenses  that  error  uses 
against  her  power:  give  her  but  room  and  do  not 
bind  her  when  she  sleeps,  for  then  she  speaks  not 
true,  as  the  old  Proteus  did  who  spake  oracles  only 
when  he  was  caught  and  bound,  but  then  rather 
she  turns  herself  into  all  shapes  except  her  own,  and 
tunes  her  voice  according  to  the  time." 

The  speech  for  the  liberty  of  unlicensed  printing 
appeared  in  1644,  while  the  first  edition  of  his  minor 
poems  was  in  press.  But,  as  his  publisher  com- 
plained, the  people  were  in  no  mood  for  literature, 
least  of  all  for  poetry  like  L' Allegro  and  II  Penseroso, 
or   even   for   a   work   of   perfect   art   like   Comus. 


280  IN  MEMORIAM 

Strafford  had  gone  to  the  block,  and  Laud's  head 
was  unsteady  on  his  shoulders;  King  Charles  was 
nearing  the  battle-field  of  Naseby  and  the  scaffold; 
an  assembly  of  divines,  meeting  in  the  Jerusalem 
chamber  at  Westminster,  were  drawing  up  a  con- 
fession of  faith  which  might  serve  as  an  iron-clad 
test  to  separate  the  band  of  Gideon  from  Jehovah's 
enemies ;  sects  were  multiplying  with  diabolical  rapid- 
ity, sixteen  of  them  flourishing  in  defiance  of  the  law. 
"We  detest  and  abhor  the  much  endeavored  tolera- 
tion," wrote  the  London  clergy.  "Parliament  will 
graciously  suppress  all  sects  without  toleration,"  pe- 
titioned the  corporation  of  the  city.  Milton  had 
already  noted  with  his  yet  unblinded  eyes  that  "  New 
Presbyter  was  only  old  priest  writ  large,"  while  Crom- 
well had  uttered  his  noble  and  mighty  words,  "He 
that  ventures  his  life  for  the  liberty  of  his  country, 
I  wish  he  would  trust  God  for  the  liberty  of  his  con- 
science." "  From  brethren  in  things  of  the  mind 
we  look  for  no  compulsion  but  that  of  light  and 
reason." 

Our  self-complacent  aftersight  enables  us  to  see, 
now  when  three  centuries  have  elapsed,  that  Milton 
the  poet  soars  far  above  the  pamphleteer;  accord- 
ingly? with  solemn  arrogance  we  summon  him  to 
judgment  for  wasting  his  genius  in  controversy,  de- 
ploring the  loss  of  certain  never-written  poems.  This 
vaunted  aftersight  is  blind  misunderstanding.  Let 
us  listen  to  the  man  himself !  "  As  for  the  other 
points,  what  God  may  have  determined  for  me  I 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  281 

know  not;  but  this  I  know,  that  if  He  ever  instilled 
an  intense  love  of  moral  beauty  into  the  breast  of  any 
man,  He  has  instilled  it  into  mine:  Ceres,  in  the 
fable,  pursued  not  her  daughter  with  a  greater  keen- 
ness of  inquiry  than  I,  day  and  night,  the  idea  of 
perfection.  Hence,  whenever  I  find  a  man  despising 
the  false  estimates  of  the  vulgar,  and  daring  to  aspire, 
in  sentiment,  language,  and  conduct,  to  what  the 
highest  wisdom  through  every  age  has  taught  us  as 
most  excellent,  to  him  I  unite  myself  by  a  sort  of 
necessary  attachment;  and  if  I  am  so  influenced  by 
nature  or  destiny  that  by  no  exertion  or  labours  of 
my  own  I  may  exalt  myself  to  this  summit  of  worth 
and  honour,  yet  no  powers  of  heaven  or  earth  will 
hinder  me  from  looking  with  reverence  and  affection 
upon  those  who  have  thoroughly  attained  this  glory, 
or  appear  in  the  successful  pursuit  of  it.  You  inquire 
with  a  kind  of  solicitude  even  into  my  thoughts. 
Hear,  then,  Diodati,  but  let  me  whisper  in  your  ear, 
that  I  may  not  blush  at  my  reply  —  I  think  (so  help 
me  Heaven!)  of  immortality.  You  inquire,  also, 
what  I  am  about?  I  nurse  my  wings,  and  meditate 
a  flight;  but  my  Pegasus  rises  as  yet  on  very  tender 
pinions.    Let  us  be  humbly  wise." 

He  thinks  of  immortality !  And  yet  he  accepts  in 
early  manhood  "  the  lot  however  mean  or  high  towards 
which  Time  leads  him  and  the  will  of  Heaven.  All 
is,  if  he  has  grace  to  use  it  so,  as  ever  in  his  great 
Taskmaster's  eye."  "  For  he  was  confirmed  in  this 
opinion,  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrate  of  his 


282  IN  MEMORIAM 

hope  to  write  well  in  laudable  things,  ought  himself 
to  be  a  true  poem."  A  believer  in  the  majesty  of 
man's  free  will,  he  was  a  believer,  too,  in  that  eter- 
nal spirit  "who  can  enrich  with  all  utterance  and 
knowledge,  and  sends  out  His  seraphim,  with  the  hal- 
lowed fire  of  His  altar,  to  touch  and  purify  the  lips 
of  whom  he  pleases :  to  this  must  be  added  industri- 
ous and  select  reading,  steady  observation,  insight 
into  all  seemly  and  generous  arts  and  affairs."  Ob- 
servation and  insight  he  sought  in  Italy,  and  would 
have  sought  in  Greece.  But  "  the  melancholy  intelli- 
gence," he  tells  us,  "which  I  received  of  the  civil 
commotions  in  England  made  me  alter  my  pur- 
pose ;  for  I  thought  it  base  to  be  traveling  for  amuse- 
ment abroad  while  my  fellow-citizens  were  fighting 
for  liberty  at  home."  He  had  no  love  for  contro- 
versy, especially  in  an  age  of  brutal  recrimination 
and  barbarous  cruelty;  in  fact,  he  hated  it  for  its 
own  sake  and  for  the  abuse  and  slander  that  it 
would  surely  bring  upon  him. 

Listen  again :  "  For,  surely,  to  every  good  and 
peaceable  man,  it  must  in  nature  needs  be  a  hateful 
thing  to  be  the  displeaser  and  molester  of  thousands; 
much  better  would  it  please  him,  undoubtedly,  to  be 
the  messenger  of  gladness  and  contentment,  which  is 
his  chief  intended  business  to  all  mankind,  but  that 
they  resist  and  oppose  their  own  true  happiness.  But 
when  God  commands  to  take  the  trumpet  and  blow 
a  dolorous  and  jarring  blast,  it  lies  not  in  man's  will 
what  he  shall  conceal."    "Which  might  teach  these 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  283 

times  not  suddenly  to  condemn  all  things  that  are 
sharply  spoken  or  vehemently  written,  as  proceeding 
out  of  stomach,  virulence,  or  ill-nature." 

"No  man  can  be  justly  offended  with  him  that 
shall  endeavour  to  impart  or  bestow,  without  gain 
to  himself,  those  sharp  and  saving  words  which  would 
be  a  terror  and  torment  in  him  to  keep  back.  For 
me,  I  have  determined  to  lay  up,  as  the  best  treasure 
and  solace  of  a  good  old  age,  if  God  vouchsafe  it 
me,  the  honest  liberty  of  free  speech  from  my  youth, 
when  I  shall  think  it  available  in  so  dear  a  concern- 
ment as  the  church's  good."  Moreover,  he  imagined 
his  Master  saying,  "  When  time  was,  thou  couldst  not 
find  a  syllable  of  all  thou  hast  read  or  studied  to 
utter  in  my  behalf?  Yet  ease  and  leisure  was  given 
thee  for  thy  retired  thoughts  out  of  the  sweat  of 
other  men.  Thou  hast  the  diligence,  the  parts,  the 
language  of  a  man,  if  a  vain  subject  were  to  be 
adorned  or  beautified;  but  when  the  cause  of  God 
and  His  Church  was  to  be  pleaded,  for  which  pur- 
pose that  tongue  was  given  thee  which  thou  hast, 
God  listened  if  He  could  hear  thy  voice  among  his 
zealous  servants,  but  thou  wert  dumb  as  a  beast; 
from  henceforward  be  that  which  thine  own  brutish 
silence  hath  made  thee."  This  believer  in  immortality 
feared  to  be  punished  "in  the  shape  he  sinned," 
with  everlasting  "brutish  silence." 

His  prose  inferior  to  his  poetry?  Who  knew  this 
better  than  Milton?  Who  declared  in  the  very  last 
moment  of  self-immolation :    "  This  manner  of  writ- 


284  IN  MEMOKIAM 

ing,  wherein  knowing  myself  inferior  to  myself,  led 
by  the  genial  power  of  nature  to  another  task,  I 
have  the  use,  as  I  may  account,  but  of  my  left  hand." 
Many  in  these  later  centuries  have  sympathized 
with  Milton  in  his  blindness;  all  the  more  because 
he  lost  his  sight  in  the  service  of  his  country,  writing 
the  defense  of  the  English  people.  But  the  left-handed 
Milton  is  no  less  a  patriot  than  the  sightless  bard 
listening  to  Archangel  ruined,  or  to  the  harpings  and 
hallelujahs  of  the  angels  that  renew  their  strength 
in  glimpses  of  God's  face.  Nay,  the  sacrifice  was  even 
greater.  It  consumed  the  best  years  of  his  life;  he 
was  thirty-three  when  he  wrote  the  first,  and  fifty- 
two  when  he  wrote  the  last,  of  his  controversial 
pamphlets.  They  cost  him  his  eyes  and  the  use  for 
two  decades  of  the  wonderful  right  hand  that  wrote 
the  Paradise  Lost  and  the  Samson  Agonistes.  Does 
the  history  of  poetry  or  the  history  of  patriotism 
anywhere  record  a  nobler  sacrifice  ?  Milton  was  neither 
poor  nor  greedy;  he  was  rich  enough  to  write  poems 
at  his  leisure;  like  Socrates,  his  wants  were  few. 
He  was  never  physically  strong;  there  was  no  guar- 
antee, human  or  divine,  that  he  would  escape  cap- 
tivity or  the  scaffold,  or  live  to  old  age.  Yet  he 
placed  upon  the  altar  of  English  liberty  all  the 
poems  teeming  in  his  prolific  brain,  all  the  thoughts 
that  wandered  through  eternity.  But  God,  who  in 
the  ancient  story  at  once  inspired  and  refused  the 
sacrifice  of  Abraham's  child  of  promise,  the  God  of 
Milton,  gave  back  to  him  and  to  literature  the  offered 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  285 

song,  the  guerdon  of  his  unshaken  faith,  and  the 
poem  lost  in  the  turmoil  of  the  revolution  was  re- 
gained amid  the  revels  and  the  persecutions  of  the 
Restoration.  As  the  Stuarts  remounted  for  a  brief 
space  the  throne  of  England,  to  cover  the  stains  of 
their  father's  blood  with  darker  stains  of  immorality 
and  cruelty,  then  Milton  soared  serenely  to  the  throne 
of  the  immortals,  to  sit  down  with  Homer  and  Lu- 
cretius and  Dante  and  Spenser,  not  the  least  of  that 
illustrious  company  who  brighten  with  celestial  splen- 
dor and  soften  with  celestial  melodies  "the  smoke 
and  stir  of  this  dim  spot  that  men  call  earth." 

Misread  him)  not,  however.  His  was  no  unpre- 
meditated sacrifice,  made  in  ignorance  of  consequences. 
It  is  Milton's  glory  that  he  counted  the  cost  cor- 
rectly, even  to  the  slanders  that  would  be  heaped  upon 
him,  and  that  he  paid  it  notwithstanding.  He  knew 
his  age  and  its  favorite  methods  of  reply,  the  prison 
and  the  pillory,  and  when  these  were  not  possible, 
abusive  lies  and  slanders.  Here  is  an  early  specimen. 
"  Of  late,  since  he  was  out  of  wit  and  clothes,  he  is 
now  clothed  in  serge  and  confined  to  a  parlour,  where 
he  blasphemes  God  and  the  king  as  ordinarily  erst- 
while he  drank  sack  and  swore.  Hear  him  speak! 
Christian,  dost  thou  like  these  passages?  Or  doth 
thy  heart  rise  against  such  unseemly  beastliness? 
Nay,  but  take  this  head  .  .  .  Horrid  blasphemy! 
You  that  love  Christ,  and  know  this  miscreant  wretch, 
stone  him  to  death,  lest  yourselves  smart  for  his 
impunity ." 


286  IN  MEMORIAM 

True,  we  owe  to  this  abuse  those  radiant  bits  of 
autobiography,  imbedded  like  jewels  in  the  contro- 
versial pamphlets.  Milton  never  skulked,  as  many 
do  even  in  our  time,  behind  the  plea  that  a  man's 
character  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  opinions.  For 
Milton,  a  man's  bad  character  discredited  his  opin- 
ions, especially  where  moral  issues  were  involved. 
Skilled  musician  as  he  was,  he  would  have  scoffed 
at  those  who,  albeit  music-deaf,  chatter  glibly  of  the 
concord  of  sweet  sounds.  Apostates  from  liberty, 
tyrants  and  sycophants,  hirelings  and  bribe-takers, 
he  believed,  were  not  inspired  to  instruct  free  English- 
men in  civil  or  religious  duty.  To  unmask  them 
was,  therefore,  to  refute  them.  If  he  himself  were 
such,  he  had  no  duty,  nay,  not  even  the  right  to 
speak.  Therefore  he  replied  to  his  slanderers  with 
noble  self-revelation,  an  example  followed  in  our 
day  by  John  Henry  Newman  in  his  powerful  and 
successful  Apologia, 

And  what  manner  of  man  did  he  reveal?  The 
loving  son  of  a  very  noble  father,  himself  an  out- 
cast from  the  paternal  home  for  his  opinion's  sake. 
Trained  to  knowledge  and  music  and  independence 
by  this  same  father,  who  had  acquired  wealth  by 
intelligence  and  industry,  and  sent  by  him  to  Cam- 
bridge that  he  might  prepare  to  serve  the  Church. 

A  Puritan  in  his  youth,  but  not  of  the  kind  sculp- 
tured by  Saint  Gaudens,  or  even  of  the  Cromwell 
kind,  but  one  that  loved  Shakespeare  and  adored 
Spenser,  who  delighted  in  music  and  in  the  friend- 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  287 

ship  of  noble  souls,  whose  strength  was  as  the  strength 
of  ten  because  his  heart  was  pure.  A  shallow  critic 
of  Milton's  Comus  declares  that  Milton  could  not 
draw  ugliness :  "  It  turns  into  beauty  or  majesty  in 
his  hands."  He  could  draw  it  easily  enough,  but  never 
with  love,  always  with  loathing.  Comus,  like  Satan, 
the  Serpent,  tempts  chastity  with  beauty,  and  only 
at  that  entrance  was  Milton  himself  exposed  to  evil. 
Ugly  wickedness  repelled  him ;  meanness  and  coward- 
ice enraged  him.  A  born  poet,  he  was  also  a  born 
artist;  like  Dante,  taking  infinite  pains  to  acquire 
technical  perfection.  Like  Galileo  and  Pascal,  rebel- 
ling at  the  pedants  who  controlled  the  learning  of 
his  time,  he  was  none  the  less  a  student,  whose 
prodigious  memory  was  the  ready  servant  of  a  puis- 
sant and  far-ranging  intelligence.  Not  tall,  but  lithe 
and  erect;  his  slender  frame  carrying  a  shapely  head 
crowned  with  light  brown  hair,  which  clustered  about 
an  oval  face  beautiful  in  form  and  color,  and  lumi- 
nous dark-gray  glittering  eyes  whose  glitter  changed 
to  glow  when  thoughts  were  surging  in  his  brain  or 
feeling  rising  in  his  heart.  A  sweet  and  tuneful 
voice  made  his  speech  and  song  attractive,  while  a 
playful  irony  blended  with  a  serious  cheerfulness  to 
brighten  all  his  talk.  After  fourteen  years  of  prepara- 
tion for  it  and  witness  of  its  administration,  he 
refused  to  enter  the  Church.  "He  who  would  take 
orders  must  subscribe  himself  slave  and  take  an  oath 
withal."  God's  servant  he  would  be  most  willingly, 
and  man's  too,  for  that  matter.    But  long  before  the 


288  IN  MEMORIAM 

German  poet  Arndt  had  written  it,  Milton  felt  that 
God  who  made  the  iron  grow  in  the  hillsides  had  little 
love  for  slaves.  His  noble  father,  one  of  the  noblest 
in  human  annals,  although  reluctant,  yielded  to  the 
scruples  of  his  beloved  son,  who  spent  six  years  more 
in  quiet  study  and  fifteen  months  in  foreign  travel. 
The  lad  who  had  criticised  the  University  pedants 
made  friends  in  Paris  with  Hugo  Grotius  and  in 
Italy  with  the  wisest  Italians  of  that  gloomy  period. 
Even  where  Galileo  then  languished  a  prisoner,  Mil- 
ton would  not  hold  his  peace  when  his  religious 
views  were  called  in  question.  Indeed,  his  interview 
with  the  "Tuscan  artist/'  the  sightless  victim  of  eccle- 
siastical tyranny,  made  him  the  more  eager  to  pre- 
serve the  envied  liberty  of  England  from  the  reign 
of  "thorough/'  begun  by  Laud  and  Strafford,  and 
supported  by  King  Charles  and  his  intriguing  queen. 

Galileo  was  then  in  his  seventy-fifth  year,  old,  blind, 
bereft  of  his  beloved  daughter,  yet  indomitably  deter- 
mined to  defy  his  persecutors  with  the  last  and 
greatest  of  his  dialogues,  that  upon  the  New  Sciences. 

Did  the  young  poet,  rejoicing  in  the  vigor  of  early 
manhood,  have  some  foreboding  of  his  own  destiny 
as  he  looked  upon  those  rugged  features  and  talked 
with  the  sightless  "  Columbus  of  the  skies  ?  "  Did 
he  feel  the  darkness  gathering  about  his  own  head, 
and  the  prison  walls  enclosing  him,  and  see  in  the 
ministries  of  Galileo's  pupils  the  one  remaining  com- 
fort of  his  own  last  days?  Galileo  had  two  daugh- 
ters, one  of  whom  was  sour,  peevish,  morose,  and 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  289 

selfish,  the  other  a  ministering  angel  while  she  lived, 
and  more  than  ministering  angel:  a  companion  for 
her  father's  mind,  the  greatest  then  blazing  in  all 
earth's  galaxy;  but  a  companion  taken  from  him  all 
too  soon,  though  still  "calling  to  him  continually." 
Milton  was  to  have  three  daughters,  of  whom  one  only 
should  be  any  comfort  to  him,  and  she  rather  in 
love  and  good  intention  than  in  intellectual  sympa- 
thy. Did  Milton  hear  from  Galileo's  own  lips  the 
story  of  that  strange  retraction,  not  yet  wholly  free 
from  mystery,  and  did  he  swear  on  hearing  it  never 
to  fling  a  stone  at  the  wonderful  old  man,  who  was 
even  then  redeeming  his  defeat  and  revenging  his 
humiliation  by  the  defiant  publication  of  the  prin- 
ciples that  underlie  our  modern  dynamics,  and  now 
flash  their  splendor  to  us  from  every  triumph  of  mod- 
ern engineering?  I  never  read  Milton's  allusions  to 
Galileo  in  his  prose  and  in  his  poetry  without  a  vision 
of  that  meeting:  the  last  of  the  giants  of  the  older 
Italy,  the  herald  of  an  intellectual  method  that  was 
to  change  the  face  of  the  world  and  transform  the 
reasoning  of  mankind ;  and  the  last  of  the  Elizabethan 
poets,  the  one  born  out  of  due  time,  as  he  himself 
declared,  but  destined  to  compose  a  poem  of  enduring 
sublimity,  and  to  live  a  poem  of  heroic  and  thrilling 
majesty. 

Perhaps  the  noblest  passage  in  Schiller's  Don 
Carlos  is  that  in  which  the  Queen  begs  Posa  to  tell 
the  Prince  to  reverence  the  ideals  of  his  youth.  Ah 
me !    How  few  of  us  attain  to  it !    In  the  dire  struggle 


290  IN  MEMORIAM 

for  existence,  in  the  rush  of  competition,  tempted 
by  avarice  or  ambition  or  the  pride  of  life,  weak- 
ened by  strife  or  by  the  persuasions  of  timid  friends, 
the  ideals  that  charmed  us  in  the  golden  dawn  fade 
away  like  the  splendors  of  the  morning,  returning 
at  dusk  only  as  reminders  of  what  we  might  have 
been. 

John  Milton  stands  forever  in  the  history  of  Eng- 
lish politics  and  of  English  literature  as  a  man  who 
reverenced  in  mature  manhood  and  in  age  the  ideals 
of  his  youth,  "never  'bating  jot  of  heart  of  hope, 
but  steering  right  onward/'  I  shall  not  defend  him 
from  the  charges  made  against  him,  some  —  and  the 
most  —  of  which  are  false  and  foolish,  and  many  of 
which  betray  a  signal  ignorance  of  his  writings,  of 
his  history,  and  of  the  age  and  the  England  in  which 
he  lived.  In  Italy  he  might  have  written  a  master- 
piece of  controversy  like  Galileo's  Saggiatore;  in# 
France  he  might  have  written  letters  like  Pascal's 
Provincials;  in  England  he  used  the  club  of  Her- 
cules, not  the  stiletto  of  the  Italian  master,  or  like 
the  wonderful  French  genius,  the  shafts  of  merci- 
less ridicule  and  the  flaming  sword  of  an  angry 
archangel. 

True  to  his  ideals,  he  looked  with  foreboding  at 
Cromwell's  encroachments  upon  liberty,  warning 
whilst  praising  him,  and  he  closed  his  defense  of 
the  people  of  England  with  these  courageous  words: 
"  If,  as  you  have  been  valiant  in  war,  you  should 
grow  debauched  in  peace,  you  that  have  had  such 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  291 

visible  demonstrations  of  the  goodness  of  God  to 
yourselves  and  of  his  wrath  to  your  enemies;  if  it 
should  fall  out  that  you  have  not  learned  by  so 
ancient  an  example  before  your  eyes  to  fear  God  and 
work  righteousness ;  —  then  for  my  part  I  shall  easily 
grant  and  confess  (for  I  cannot  deny  it)  whatever 
ill  man  may  speak  or  think  of  you  to  be  very  true. 
And  you  will  find  in  a  little  time  that  God's  dis- 
pleasure against  you  will  be  greater  than  it  has  been 
against  your  adversaries,  greater  than  his  grace  and 
favour  have  been  to  yourselves,  which  you  have  had 
larger  experience  of  than  any  other  nation  under 
heaven."  "  Milton,  thou  shouldst  be  living  at  this 
hour,"  and  writing  for  America ! 

"  No  one,"  wrote  Milton,  "  ever  saw  me  going 
about,  no  one  ever  saw  me  asking  anything  among  my 
friends,  or  stationed  at  the  doors  of  the  court  with 
a  petitioner's  face  or  haunting  the  entries  of  lesser 
assemblies.  I  kept  myself  entirely  at  home,  contriv- 
ing, though  burdened  with  taxes  in  the  main  rather 
oppressive,  to  lead  my  frugal  life,  when  lo!  Charles' 
kingdom  having  been  formed  into  a  republic,  the 
Council  of  State  invited  me,  dreaming  of  nothing  of 
the  sort,  to  give  the  use  of  my  services  chiefly  in 
foreign  affairs."  Thus  he  became  Latin  Secretary 
in  the  new  republic,  an  office  which,  if  not  conferred 
by  Cromwell,  brought  his  future  panegyrist  and  in- 
trepid counsellor  into  close  relations  with  him.  But 
the  man  that  sacrificed  his  eyes  to  defend  the  people 
of  England  was  not  the  man  to  sacrifice  his  con- 


292  IN  MEMOEIAM 

science  to  any  ruler,  however  powerful.  Much  as  he 
admired  the  Protector,  he  feared  and  foreboded  the 
downfall  of  a  republic  so  dependent  upon  a  single 
overmastering  mind.  His  fears  and  forebodings  soon 
turned  to  facts.  There  were,  upon  Cromwell's  death, 
among  England's  five  millions,  not  men  enough  to 
save  it  from  the  returning  Stuarts.  Puritanism,  as 
Milton  foresaw  and  foretold,  had  made  itself  hateful 
by  political  and  social  tyranny;  even  Cromwell  came 
to  see  before  his  death  that  Puritanism  "  had  missed 
its  aim."  Intellectual  forces  abounded;  they  were 
soon  to  appear,  not  so  much  in  poets  like  Butler  and 
Dryden,  or  in  statesmen  like  Clarendon,  but  in  the 
Koyal  Society,  and  afterwards  in  Isaac  Newton. 
Bacon's  skepticism,  amplified  and  emboldened,  would 
assert  itself  in  Thomas  Hobbes,  his  favorite  secre- 
tary, and  theology  was  to  give  place  to  the  New 
Philosophy,  "which  from  the  times  of  Galileo  at 
Florence  and  Sir  Francis  Bacon  in  England  hath 
been  much  cultivated  in  Italy,  France,  Germany,  and 
other  parts  abroad,  as  well  as  in  England."  Mean- 
while men  like  Hales  and  Chillingworth  were  seeing 
that  the  Church  of  England  might  possibly  be  saved 
by  mitigating  and  simplifying  its  doctrine,  and  by  a 
noble  comprehension  of  all  who  lived  a  righteous  life, 
thus  hoping  vainly  (as  the  sequel  proved)  to  gain  by 
tolerance  and  reason  what  Milton  had  vainly  hoped 
to  gain  by  independence.  But  in  one  of  those  spasms 
which  sweep  over  a  nation,  all  hope  of  moderation 
perished.    The  corpse  of  Cromwell  was  torn  from  its 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  293 

grave  and  gibbeted  at  Tyburn;  that  of  Pym  cast  out 
of  Westminster  Abbey ;  Howe  and  Baxter,  the  ablest 
preacher  and  that  noblest  parish  priest  in  England, 
were  driven  from  their  churches;  John  Bunyan  was 
sent  to  Bedford  jail  while  John  Milton  was  impris- 
oned and  impoverished.  His  sight  was  gone,  but  his 
spirit  was  unbroken.  True,  he  had  yielded  to  the 
urging  of  his  friends  and  gone  into  hiding  when  his 
enemies  were  hoping  to  see  him  carried  to  Tyburn 
in  a  cart.  Mr.  Masson  declares  quite  truly  that 
there  is  no  greater  historical  puzzle  than  the  com- 
plete escape  of  Milton  from  the  scaffold  after  the 
Restoration.  "It  was  thought  a  strange  omission," 
wrote  Burnet.  But  to  Milton  it  was  no  puzzle;  it 
was  an  act  of  God,  in  whom  he  had  put  his  trust, 
and  who  would  not  see  him  put  to  shame.  But 
whither  to  go  and  what  to  do?  Home  he  hardly 
possessed,  for  his  beloved  second  wife  was  dead,  and 
the  only  one  of  his  three  daughters  that  loved  the 
blind  father,  the  youngest,  Deborah,  was  but  nine 
years  old.  His  great  Taskmaster,  however,  had  work 
for  which  he  had  saved  him.  Already,  in  1658,  Mil- 
ton had  begun  the  elaboration  of  the  great  poem 
which  he  had  laid  aside  when  duty  called  him  to  sac- 
rifice his  strong  right  arm.  He  now  regained  its  use. 
A  feebler  soul  would  have  succumbed  in  such  sur- 
roundings. Evil  indeed  were  the  times;  his  friends 
dragged  to  prison  or  the  scaffold ;  the  causes  for  which 
he  had  made  his  sacrifices  lost  apparently  forever ;  his 
old  antagonist,  the  hypocrite  Moras,  preaching  in 


294  IN  MEMORIAM 

London  to  the  King  and  his  courtiers;  all  the  scum 
of  literary  England  floating  to  the  surface!  What 
an  hour  for  such  an  undertaking!  His  "late  es- 
poused saint"  coming  to  him  in  dreams  only;  his 
oldest  daughters  stealing  and  selling  his  books  to 
gratify  their  whims ;  and  his  little  Deborah  trying  in 
vain  to  keep  pace  with  her  great  father's  rapid  men- 
tal stride  so  as  to  read  to  him  his  books  of  divers 
tongues.     Then,  to  use  his  own  words, 

"  Though  blind  of  sight, 
Despised,  and  thought  extinguished  quite, 
With  inward  eyes  illuminated, 
His  fiery  virtue  roused 

From  under  ashes  into  sudden  flame,  he  like  an  eagle 
His  cloudless  thunder  bolted  on  their  heads. 
So  virtue  given  for  lost, 
Depressed  and  overthrown,  as  seemed, 
Revives,  reflourishes,  then  vigorous  most 
When  most  unactive  deemed, 
And  though  her  body  dies,  her  fame  survives." 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson  remarked  jauntily  that  we 
cannot  all  enjoy  Paradise  Lost.  He  meant  to  say 
that  we  cannot  all  or  any  of  us  enjoy  all  of  it,  any 
more  than  we  can  enjoy  all  of  Dante's  Commedia, 
or  all  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet,  or  all  of  Browning's 
Ring  and  the  Book.  Poe  was  nearer  right  when  he 
contended  that  every  long  poem  is  really  a  cluster  of 
short  ones,  Paradise  Lost  being  the  chief  example. 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  295 

Let  me  consider  three  points  only,  points  that  have 
to  do  with  Milton's  character.  First,  the  frequent  ob- 
jection that  Satan  is  the  hero  of  the  poem.  Of  course 
he  is.  Why  not?  The  essence  of  tragedy,  as  every 
great  dramatist  from  ^schylus  to  Ibsen  has  per- 
ceived, lies  in  wrong-doing,  the  righteous  sufferers  be- 
ing victims  always  of  another's  unrighteousness, 
whether,  as  in  Prometheus  Bound,  the  wrong-doer  be 
Zeus  himself,  or,  as  in  the  Agamemnon,  all  are  wrong 
in  different  degree.  Now,  Milton  at  first  intended 
to  compose  a  tragedy.  The  ancient  story  and  his 
own  defect  of  dramatic  power  made  that  seem  un- 
wise. But  the  tragic  elements  in  the  story  of  the  fall 
of  Lucifer  and  of  Adam  filled  his  mind;  the  study 
of  Shakespeare,  especially  of  the  characters  of  Wol- 
sey  and  of  Lady  Macbeth,  had  revealed  to  him  quite 
early  the  havoc  wrought  in  great  natures  by  ambi- 
tion; while  the  career  of  his  great  contemporary 
Strafford  had  shown  him  a  colossal  character  ruined 
by  greed  and  pride,  and  wanton  use  of  giant  strength. 
Wolsey's  "  Cromwell,  I  charge  thee  fling  away  am- 
bition, by  that  sin  fell  the  angels,"  might  be  taken 
as  his  text. 

Wolsey's  wail,  "  If  I  had  served  my  God  with  half 
the  zeal  I  served  my  king,  he  would  not  in  mine 
age  have  left  me  naked  to  mine  enemies,"  made  Mil- 
ton doubt  his  other  saying  that  when  he  fell  "he 
fell  like  Lucifer."  Strafford,  however,  whose  trial 
Milton  must  have  followed  spellbound,  —  Strafford, 
indeed,  resembled  an  archangel  ruined,  witness  his 


296  I  X  MEMORIAM 

fascination  for  every  historian  of  that  momentous 
period.  Not  Pym,  not  Hampden,  not  even  Crom- 
well, stirs  us  as  does  the  haughty,  brilliant,  mentally 
massive,  upward-climbing  Wentworth,  struggling  in 
heroic  splendor  to  avert  his  doom.  I  never  recall  the 
famous  passage, 

"  Thrice  he  essayed,  and  thrice  in  spite  of  scorn. 
Tears  such  as  Angels  weep  burst  forth," 

without  a  vision  of  Strafford  in  the  presence  of  his 
judges,  he,  too,  in  spite  of  scorn,  helpless  to  check 
the  gushing  tears  that  wet  his  iron  cheeks.  Pre- 
cisely here  lay  all  the  tragedy  to  Milton,  that  men 
like  Wolsey  and  Bacon  and  Strafford  should  rank 
with  the  apostates.  His  scorn  for  Belial  and  for 
Mammon,  the  one  "who  seemed  composed  for  dig- 
nity and  high  exploit,  though  all  was  false  and  hol- 
low," the  other  expecting  to  find  even  in  the  desert- 
soil  of  hell  gems  and  gold,  and  expecting  to  exer- 
cise angelic  skill  and  art  in  raising  even  there 
magnificence;  —  Milton's  scorn  for  both  of  them 
gleams  and  stabs  like  lightning  in  the  words  of 
Beelzebub,  "than  whom,  Satan  except,  none  higher 
sate;  who  stood  with  Atlantean  shoulders  fit  to  bear 
the  weight  of  mightiest  monarchies."  Milton  felt  his 
own  kinship  with  these  colossal  spirits,  together  with 
his  abhorrence  at  their  apostasy.  That  weaklings 
should  go  wrong  in  great  affairs  matters  little;  but 
when  giants  waste  their  strength  against  the  eternal 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  29? 

laws,  and  thereby  involve  the  living  and  the  yet  un- 
born in  misery,  then  these  laws  of  God  must  be  fol- 
lowed to  their  final  consequence,  never  even  in  Holy 
Writ  more  terribly  depicted  than  in  those  words 
of  Satan,  whose  accompanying  shudder  trembles 
through  all  the  regions  of  despair : 

"  Whither  I  go  is  hell ;  myself  am  hell ! " 

We  moderns  chuckle  fondly  as  ghosts  and  devils 
and  the  damned  fade  from  the  imagination  —  as 
though  there  vanished  with  them  the  decrees  of  God 
—  and  so  we  fail  to  read  aright  our  works  of  genius. 
The  grim  button-moulder  of  the  Norwegian  dramatist 
makes  us  shiver  for  a  moment  only  with  his  threat 
to  throw  us  to  the  scrap  pile,  but  the  merry  mood 
succeeds  him  soon.  Accordingly  on  every  side  of  us 
we  see  colossal  powers  wasted  in  daring  yet  un- 
worthy and  diabolical  enterprises,  and  in  competition 
for  that  bad  eminence  which  ends  inevitably  in  the 
devastation  of  all  that  makes  men  and  angels  sons 
of  God. 

Again,  it  is  this  hatred  of  evil  that  discolors  Mil- 
ton's image  of  the  deity.  To  be  sure,  the  harsher 
features  of  the  medieval  theology  had  not  been  soft- 
ened in  the  bitter  doctrinal  conflicts  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  while  the  framework  chosen  by  the 
poet  for  his  epic,  the  story  of  the  fall,  compelled  him 
to  attempt  the  impossible  and  miss.  For  in  his 
treatise  upon  Christian  Doctrine,  he  declared  that  to 


298  IN  -MEMORIAM 

the  finite  mind  God  must  be  forever  incomprehensible. 
But  there  was  in  Milton  none  of  that  jaunty,  jesting, 
sympathy  with  the  incorrigible  wrong-doer  that  in- 
spired Burns  in  his  farewell  to  Auld  Nickie  Ben,  and 
made  him  "  wae  to  think  upon  yon  den  e'en  for  his 
sake."  Milton,  on  the  contrary,  was  glad  to  think 
upon  "  yon  den  " ;  and  his  joy  seemed  to  him  but  a 
drop  from  the  overflow  of  God's  delight  in  the  con- 
dign punishment  of  evil-doers. 

Nothing  in  Dante's  Inferno  is  more  terrible  than 
the  picture  of  Satan  returning  triumphantly  from 
Eden  and  standing  expectant  of  the  universal  shout 
and  high  applause  to  fill  his  ear;  when  contrary, 
he  hears  on  all  sides  from  innumerable  tongues  a 
dismal  universal  hiss,  the  sound  of  public  scorn. 

"  His  arms  clung  to  his  ribs,  his  legs  intwining 
Each  other,  till  supplanted  down  he  fell 
A  monstrous  serpent  on  his  belly  prone, 
Reluctant,  but  in  vain,  a  greater  power 
Now  rul'd  him,  punish'd  in  the  shape  he  sinn'd. 
According  to  his  doom;  he  would  have  spoke, 
But  hiss  for  hiss  return'd  with  forked  tongue 
To  forked  tongue,  for  now  were  all  transform'd 
Alike,  to  serpents  all  as  accessories 
To  his  bold  riot." 

"  Punish'd  in  the  shape  he  sinn'd  !  "  There  was 
the  lesson  learned  from  Dante.  And  the  power  dis- 
played in  the  description  is  no  greater  than  the  poet's 


CHAKLES  J.  LITTLE  299 

exultation,  which  he  believes  himself  to  share  with 
God  and  all  his  loyal  angels. 

And  yet,  our  milder  conceptions  of  deity  have  given 
us  nothing  lovelier,  and  nothing  wiser,  than  the  words 
of  Adam  persuading  Eve  to  penitence: 

"  He  will  instruct  us  praying,  and  of  grace 
Beseeching  him  .  .  . 

What  better  can  we  do,  than  to  the  place 
Kepairing  where  he  judged  us,  prostrate  fall 
Before  him  reverent,  and  there  confess 
Humbly  our  faults,  and  pardon  beg,  with  tears 

Undoubtedly  he  will  relent  and  turn 
From  his  displeasure ;  in  whose  look  serene, 
When  angry  most  he  seem'd,  and  most  severe, 
What  else  but  favour,  grace,  and  mercy  shone  ?  " 

Or  having  these  milder  conceptions  given  us  any- 
thing nobler  than  the  lament  of  Adam  for  the  lost 
epiphanies  of  God  and  the  benignant  reply  of  the 
Archangel  so  sweet  with  truth  and  comfort? 

"  On  this  mount  he  appear'd,  under  this  tree 
Stood  visible,  among  these  pines  his  voice 
I  heard,  here  with  him  at  this  fountain  talk'd." 

This  is  the  voice  of  humanity  yearning  for  the 
great  companion;  the  voice  of  Schiller  lamenting 


300  IN  MEMORIAM 

the  vanished  gods  of  Greece,  the  voice  of  Musset 
crying  in  the  October  night  for  God  to  bow  the 
heavens  and  come  down,  the  voice  of  Leopardi  scan- 
ning in  vain  the  Orient  sky  for  tokens  of  His  pres- 
ence, the  voice  of  Wordsworth  complaining: 

"Great  God!   I'd  rather  be 
A  Pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn; 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn ; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

But  what  says  Michael,  with  regard  benign? 

"  Adam,  thou  know'st  heav'n  His,  and  all  the  earth, 
Not  this  rock  only;  His  omnipresence  fills 
Land,  sea,  and  air,  and  every  kind  that  lives, 
Fomented  by  His  virtual  pow'r  and  warm'd: 

Yet  doubt  not  but  in  valley  and  in  plain 
God  is  as  here,  and  will  be  found  alike 
Present,  and  of  His  presence  many  a  sign 
Still  following  thee,  still  compassing  thee  round 
With  goodness  and  paternal  love." 

And  finally,  how  inane  are  the  gibes  so  often 
flung  at  the  converse  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  Paradise ! 
For  the  nobler  gentlewomen  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury that  Milton  knew,  English  and  Italian  alike, 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  301 

spoke  a  language  far  more  stately  than  that  of  our 
fluent  and  often  flippant  dames  and  maidens.  Even 
Romeo  and  Juliet  hardly  talked  like  modern  sweet- 
hearts. How,  in  sooth,  were  the  parents  of  all  the 
living  to  address  each  other?  Was  Adam  to  greet 
Eve  with  some  such  song  as  Herrick's  Cherry  Ripe? 

"  Cherry  ripe,  ripe,  ripe,  I  cry. 
If  so  be  you  ask  me  where 
They  do  grow,  I  answer,  there 
Where  my  Eva's  lips  doe  smile, 
There's  the  land  or  cherry  isle 
Whose  plantations  fully  show 
All  the  year  where  cherries  grow." 

And  was  Eve  to  reply,  as  Dryden  made  her  reply  in 
his  never-acted  opera,  the  State  of  Innocence,  in 
which  he  "  tagged  Milton's  verses  "  and  sullied  them 
with  an  impure  fancy  ?  Shall  we  chide  the  poet  who 
made  the  mother  of  all  the  living  speak  with  the 
gracious  dignity  of  Vittoria  Colonna,  or  of  Mar- 
garet Roper,  the  charming  child  of  Sir  Thomas 
More?  Were  our  first  parents  in  their  innocence  to 
indulge  in  raptures  of  self-abandon  rather  than  to 
face  each  other  in  the  joy  of  chaste  surprise? 

Consider  the  stupendous  difficulty  of  Milton's 
task.  An  adult  pair  with  no  experience  of  child- 
hood ;  without  society  except  each  other ;  with  naught 
to  talk  about  until  they  fell,  except  the  flowers  and 
the  fruits,  and  the  creatures  of  the  garden,  and  the 
aspects  of  earth  and  sky,  and  the  walks  and  talks 


302  IN  MEMORIAM 

with  their  creator.  Milton  could  not  pour  the  riches 
of  his  vast  and  varied  knowledge  into  their  speech; 
he  shows  his  power  by  its  utter  absence.  He  would 
have  made  their  conversation  ludicrous  and  himself  a 
laughing-stock  by  freighting  it  with  anachronisms 
and  allusions  to  things  beyond  their  ken. 

Nor  are  the  critics  either  very  subtle  or  very  pro- 
found who  discover  in  these  scenes  the  persistent 
shadow  of  Mary  Powell,  Milton's  truant  wife,  and  his 
supposed  notions  of  woman's  inferiority.  Indeed, 
Milton's  conception  of  the  conjugal  relation  here  illus- 
trated is  nobler  than  any  to  be  found,  not  merely 
in  contemporary  English,  but  in  contemporary  Euro- 
pean literature.  How  mean  is  the  Adam  of  the  Bible 
story!  How  tame  and  cowardly  are  his  recorded 
words!  "The  woman  thou  gavest  to  be  with  me, 
she  gave  me  of  the  tree,  and  I  did  eat."  But  Mil- 
ton endows  Adam  with  his  own  fine  courage,  and  a 
self-sacrifice  that  verges  towards  the  sublime.  Adam 
disobeys,  indeed,  but  disobeys,  not  for  knowledge :  he 
disobeys  for  love ! 

"With  thee 
Certain  my  resolution  is  to  die; 
How  can  I  live  without  thee,  how  forego 
Thy  sweet  converse  and  love  so  dearly  join'd, 
To  live  again  in  these  wild  woods  forlorn?. 
Should  God  create  another  Eve,    . 

.  yet  loss  of  thee 
Would  never  from  my  heart :  No !  No !  I  feel 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  303 

The  link  of  nature  draw  me :  flesh  of  flesh, 
Bone  of  my  bone  thou  art,  and  from  thy  state 
Mine  never  shall  be  parted,  bliss  or  woe." 

The  notion  that  the  wife  should  be  the  husband's 
slave,  so  universal  in  the  seventeenth  century,  has 
by  no  means  disappeared  in  the  twentieth.  But  Mil- 
ton, rejecting  the  absurd  belief  that  every  woman  is 
inferior  to  any  man,  boldly  affirmed  that  whenever 
the  wife  proved  superior,  she  ought  to  bear  rule  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  nature  that  subjects  the  lower 
to  the  higher  being.  No!  Eve  is  not  the  illustra- 
tion of  a  thesis;  to  be  depicted  at  all  she  must  be 
depicted  within  the  limit  of  the  ancient  story. 
Neither  is  she  Mary  Powell.  Happy  indeed  had  Mil- 
ton been,  if  Mary  Powell  had  been  another  Eve,  for 
then  she  would  have  inspired  in  him  a  love  like  that 
which  triumphed  in  the  Garden.  Then,  like  Adam, 
he  might  have  found  in  her  that  which 

"  Argued  in  her  something  more  sublime 
And  excellent  than  what  her  mind  contemned." 

Unfortunately  for  him,  there  was  in  his  first  wife 
no  such  fathomless  depth  of  affection  as  Eve  dis- 
closed when  about  to  leave  the  places  that  she  loved. 

"But  now  lead  me  on; 
In  me  is  no  delay ;  with  thee  to  go 
Is  to  stay  here ;  without  thee  here  to  stay 


304  IN  MEMOEIAM 

Is  to  go  hence  unwilling;  thou  to  me 

Art  all  things  under  Heaven,  all  places  thou 

Who  for  my  wilful  crime  art  banished  hence." 

Nor  was  it  any  recollection  of  Mary  Powell  that  in- 
spired the  picture  of  love  triumphant  amide  the  havoc 
of  wrong-doing,  so  touching  in  its  quiet  beauty,  with 
which  the  poem  closes. 

"  Some  natural  tears  they  dropped,  but  wiped  them 
soon; 
The  world  was  all  before  them,  where  to  choose 
Their  place  of  rest,  and  Providence  their  guide, 
They  hand  in  hand,  with  wandering  steps  and  slow 
Through  Eden  took  their  solitary  way." 

Do  you  remember  the  music  of  the  eighth  book's 
opening  lines? 

"  The  angel  ended,  and  in  Adam's  ear 
So  charming  left  his  voice,  that  he  awhile 
Thought  him  still  speaking,  still  stood  fix'd  to  hear." 

Dryden,  Addison,  Wordsworth,  thought  Milton  still 
speaking,  and  each  of  them  stood  fixed  to  hear. 

"Milton,  thou  shouldst  be  living  at  this  hour ! " 
was  Wordsworth's  invocation,  and  it  befits  every 
time  that  needs  a  voice  whose  sound  is  like  the  sea 
that  can  be  heard  afar.  If,  then,  I  have  chosen  to 
write  rather  of  the  architect  than  of  his  work,  it  is 


CHARLES  J.  LITTLE  305 

because  Milton  stood  for  every  ideal  that  we  in 
America  are  called  to  realize.  He  stood  for  a  repub- 
lic, in  which  the  wisest  and  best  should  rule;  he 
stood  for  a  free  church  in  a  free  state,  for  sane  and 
rapid  methods  of  education,  for  unchecked  research 
and  liberty  of  speech,  for  pure  literature  and  noble 
art,  for  the  people  and  not  for  irresponsible  rulers 
or  privileged  classes,  for  the  laws  of  God  to  which 
all  constitutions  and  statutes  must  conform,  for  sub- 
limity of  life,  for  righteousness  of  conduct,  for  that 
universal  and  mild  monarchy  that  shall  put  an  end 
to  every  earthly  tyranny.  For  these  he  stood,  for 
these  he  fought  undauntedly,  and  at  the  last  alone. 
"  I  was  ever  a  fighter,"  sings  Mr.  Browning.  Grant 
it  freely.  But  when  I  contrast  the  blind  Samson 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  Restoration  with  the  ele- 
gant poet  of  the  Victorian  age,  I  cannot  be  altogether 
deaf  to  a  touch  of  brag  in  Browning's  words.  That 
strong  right  arm  of  John  Milton  held  useless  behind 
his  back  while  with  the  left  he  fights  his  battles, 
those  beautiful  but  sightless  eyes,  all  "knowledge  at 
one  entrance  quite  shut  out,"  —  they  are  the  marks 
of  the  greatest  literary  fighter  in  English  history, 
a  fighter  never  more  wonderful  and  never  more  tri- 
umphant than  when  he  organized  his  mightiest  vic- 
tory, his  immortal  poem,  from  the  wreck  of  a 
republic  and  the  ruin  of  his  hopes. 


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